Read Rise Of The Worm Sovereign Chapter 61 - Sealed Weapon? online for free - AllNovelFull
Lin Wu was currently floating around in a dark space. He was lying completely still so as to not arouse any suspicion from Shirong. The system had already told him that Shirong was observing the inside of the ring with his spirit sense and could do so anytime.
About five minutes passed, after which the system finally gave the green signal to Lin Wu.
~Phew~
'Took him a while, I was almost worried that he was suspicions now.' Lin Wu thought to himself.
"Now then, let's take a look at my gains, Hehe." Lin Wu said with excitement.
"System, show me the host data." Lin Wu ordered.
~Ding~
——
HOST NAME: Lin Wu
AGE: 2 years, 3 months, 22 days
LIFESPAN: 150 years
HOST SPECIES: Crimson Eyed Emerald Worm
HOST CULTIVATION: Late stage of the Qi Refining Realm
-Spirit Qi required to upgrade = [0000/1500] units (liquid spirit qi)
QI STORAGE: 12695 units [liquid spirit qi]
BLOODLINE: 1. Crimson Eyed Emerald Worm (System Manufactured)
2. Unknown (2)
CULTIVATION TECHNIQUES: None
QI SKILLS: 1. Qi Amplification (Minor)
INNATE SKILLS: 1. Radiation Manipulation (minor) (Proficiency: Novice)
2. Cellular Manipulation (lesser) (Proficiency: Intermediate)
3. Cellular Crystallization (great) (Proficiency: Intermediate)
INVENTORY: Broken Spear, Broken metal plate, Pink Women's underwear, Dagger
BEAST CORE: Not formed
VITAL ENERGY STORAGE: 7250 units
SYSTEM ENERGY STORAGE: 7542 units
RAW BLOODLINE DATA COLLECTED:
1. Common Grass Mouse
2. Rock Trampler Boar
3. Human
4. Unknown (2)
5. Ash Crowned Buck
——
"Wahahahha!" Lin Wu could not stop laughing with joy upon seeing all the spirit qi that he had obtained.
He had truly not expected that he would be able to obtain such a large amount when he had originally started the plan. He had at most expected about ten percent of the current amount, but this had gone way beyond that. The amount he had right now was enough for him to directly reach the next cultivation realm, and that was exactly what he wanted.
But of course, he could not do that carelessly. Right now he was in a rather complex situation. On one hand, he had plenty of spirit qi and had the potential to gain even more, while on the other hand there was always a chance that he could be found out.
"Hmm, now that I've got the resources I need to plan further. I need to analyze what approach to take or I can end up in great trouble." Lin Wu muttered to himself.
He thought over the possibilities while gently floating in the empty space of the ring. The minor spatial dimension that was continued within the ring was quite large. From what Lin Wu had heard, this ring was a high grade spatial storage ring.
"System, what's the size of this ring?" Lin Wu asked curiously.
~Ding~
——
ANSWER: The ring has a storage volume of about fifty cubic meters, though this area is not in any particular shape and is rather fluid.
——
"Fifty cubic meters? Damn, this is bigger than the dorm room I used to live in." Lin Wu said with surprise.
'Though its strange… from the cultivation novels I've read the spatial storage rings have much bigger capacities than this. I've seen the characters store literal mountains in them. This ring is an ant compared to those. Or perhaps… this is how they're supposed to be in this world.' Lin Wu thought to himself.
About half an hour passed while Lin Wu was thinking of what to do next. Meanwhile, Shirong and the two other men, Ye Dai and Bei Wen, were flying towards the border of the forbidden zone. Because they had killed the rest of their companions, they now had to make sure that it was believable. Originally they were going to make it seem more believable by saying that they had encountered a great danger and had injuries.
But now they did not need to do that. They had the best excuse which was nothing more than their cultivation bases which had regressed. They even had internal injuries, which made it even more believable to the clans that their dead companions belonged to.
In fact, they would be even more sure that they were saying the truth as one would not intentionally dispel their cultivation base just to pretend like that, as the losses would outweigh the gains. But the case with Shirong, Ye Dai and Bei Wen was exceptional.
They had obtained something which any power of this world would want to obtain. They would not blink even if they had to sacrifice millions of cultivators in order to obtain a pseudo immortal tool. That was just how important and precious it was.
Though Shirong now knew that it was even beyond that. He had intentionally not told the other two that the spear was not a pseudo immortal tool but rather an immortal tool. But he still had some apprehensions about the spear.
Even if it was an immortal tool, it did not seem to have the other characteristics that an immortal tool should have. From what he had heard, immortal tools would exude pressure that was unlike anything else, and the fluctuations of qi from them could be felt for thousands of kilometers if they were activated.
Another thing Shirong was sure of was that the spear had taken far too little of spirit qi to work. If it were a common immortal tool from what Shirong had read, they would take up the spirit qi of tens of spirit stone mines and even then would only exert a fraction of their power.
This lead Shirong to think of some of the legends that most cultivators knew of. There were many stories that described how lucky people were able to find trash weapons which were nothing but immortal weapons in disguise. They were either sealed or needed resources to activate.
From seeing the effect and actions of the green Crystal spear, Shirong was not leaning towards the latter. The spear needed to absorb their spirit qi in order to save them; this meant that it was most likely lacking spirit qi.
'It is more likely to be a sealed immortal weapon. If it was a full-fledged one, I'm sure all the Immortal Ascension realm cultivators of this world would have been here and fighting over it.' Shirong thought.
Report chapter
Soon the Shirong realized that they had reached the point where they had killed their companions. The traces of remains were already cleaned and the signs of the fight were still there.
"Young master, should we change the scene a bit?" Bei Wen asked.
"Yes, make it seem like a beast attack," Shirong said after thinking for a bit.
"A beast attack? But young master, we have not seen even a single beast here." Ye Dai said feeling a bit confused.
"Exactly, so they can't track a beast either. Also from what I gathered before, the most likely cause behind the death of the cultivators from the Ling Kingdom's royal court was none other than a beast or rather multiple beasts." Shirong said.
"If you say so, young master." Bei Wen replied before getting started on the task.
Ye Dai and Bei Wen spent about twenty minutes changing the area to make it seem like there had been a beast attack. While they were doing it, it didn't seem like it was something new to them either. In fact, they even had beast parts such as claws, and fangs in their spatial storage treasures.
From this, one could tell that they had been always prepared. If one looked at the scene now, they would see claw marks everywhere and ravaged ground. There were even foot prints that looked like they belonged to a rather large beast. The two men even spread around a strange brown powder that had a pungent stench.
"Damn, these guys are a bunch of professional schemers!" Lin Wu said, feeling shocked.
Lin Wu had been observing the entire process from the start to the end and was impressed by what they had done. To him, the area looked completely different and he was sure that it was enough to throw off the investigators.
The ring had established the connection which allowed Lin Wu to see what Shirong's spirit sense was observing. Previously he would have been unable to do this and would have been found out, but because Shirong had poured in a large amount of his spirit qi into him, the system had replicated its qi signature.
This qi signature allowed him to disguise the transmissions that were taking place through the connection. But Lin Wu could still not use his own spirit qi as that would lead to Shirong finding him out.
In fact, back when he moved from Shirong's hand after absorbing their spirit qi, he had not done it by using spirit qi. Rather he had to use an ingenious method that he was only able to think of after consulting the system. Even the system itself had not considered something like this.
What Lin Wu had done to make it seem like he was moving was to actually just shift his body weight. Right now, even if Lin Wu was in the form of a spear, his weight was still the same and his weight was comparable to that of an elephant.
But Lin Wu realized that even if he had shrunk, the weight of different body parts much has been different and his guess was correct. The only reason it was so balanced before was because the system had distributed his weight equally throughout his body when he changed to this form.
So all Lin Wu needed to do was to actually change the point where the weight was concentrated. Back then to escape Shirong's hand, he shifted a majority of his weight to his head, which was nothing but the spear blade. This lead to it tilting abruptly to the side and twisting Shirong's wrist.
After this was done, Shirong flinched and let go of him. Once he was out of the range of their spirit sense, it was easy for him to move by using spirit qi as they could not detect him anymore. Thus Lin Wu guided the three men towards a random point in the bottom of the lake and then simply withdrew the beast carapace fragment from his inventory.
Lin Wu's plan was to make them think that the beast carapace fragment was a treasure. This would make them interested in it and make them think of its value. Lin Wu knew that except for being hard, the beast carapace fragment was inherently useless.
But the people of Shirong's clan or he himself would not think so and would want to know more about it. Thus this could possibly lead them to find more about the beast which had killed that nascent soul realm elder of the Ling Kingdom's royal court.
This was Lin Wu's plan to use the resources and connections of Shirong's clan to find the beast which he needed to kill in order to complete his quest.
Shirong took one last look at the scene before speaking, "let's leave."
The three men then hopped back on to their spirit swords and flew out of the border of the forbidden area.
"Ooh! Let's see what the area outside this looks like." Lin Wu muttered with excitement.
He could see the ground below them rapidly change. It turned from the previous black to brown and then finally to a grassy green. They had finally reached the point where the millennium forest was at.
"We should be reaching the first guard post soon, is there anything we need to do before that young master?" Ye Dai asked.
Shirong held his chin and rubbed it slightly before speaking.
"Just follow my lead when I talk with them." Shirong said.
The two men nodded in understanding and they continued onward. About two minutes later, they finally reached the guard outpost.
"HALT! Show us your identities!" A person suddenly shouted.
The three of them then saw a core condensation flying up to them from the ground.
As soon as Shirong spotted the man, his expression changed and his posture did too.
"HELP! HELP US! W-we were attacked!" Shirong suddenly cried in a scared tone.
The other two men Ye Dai and Bei Wen joined him too and cried out.
"Booohuuu! They're dead… they're all dead."
Report chapter
The cultivators who had stopped the trio were a bit shocked, to say the least upon seeing their reactions. They had not expected three grown men to act like this. Then they noticed their disheveled appearances and got a better grasp on their identity.
"You are… Young Master Shirong!" One of the guards recognized.
"Yes, yes… that's me," Shirong said while stuttering.
"What happened? You all just went out in the morning and it only been twelve hours…" Another guard asked.
"Dead… they're all dead…" Ye Dai said in a crestfallen tone.
"WHAT!" The guards collectively exclaimed.
When the trio of Shirong, Ye Dai and Bei Wen had arrived, only two of the guards had seen them and had listened to their cries. But even then they had not paid proper attention as they were more focused on whether they were intruders or something.
But after confirming their identities, they were now shocked. It had already been a rather surprising thing that the clans approved of someone to go into the forbidden zone after such a long time. In the past year since they had established the barrier and the outposts, only three teams had ever gone in.
Two of them returned after just a few minutes as they had only gone to check if the barrier was working well, but Shirong's team was the one that had actually entered for a proper expedition. No one had dared to go after knowing about the cultivates of the Ling Kingdom's royal court, thus they did not expect it.
But now their fears were fully confirmed as the first proper team that went in for an expedition had come back with only twenty percent of their members.
"Take them inside and contact the city… tell them we have a lot of causalities," One of the guards who seemed to be the head spoke.
By now almost all of the guards from the outpost had gathered around. Shirong looked around and counted about thirty of them here.
'Damn, there are a lot more than we saw on the way in. And this is just on one outpost, there are more than size surrounding the entire zone.' Shirong thought.
He then did a quick sweep of the cultivators and saw that except for five people, all of them were at the qi refining realm, while the five were at the core condensation realm.
'This does not seem right, did the clans lie to us? There is no way they would assign so many core condensation realm experts here unless there was something important in there. Did they perhaps get even more information than I thought?' Shirong wondered.
They brought the trio to the inside of the outpost, which was nothing but a wooden building that was of three stories. The three of them were scanned over with a few formations to make sure that they did not have any of the dangerous fumes and toxins from the forbidden zone on them.
"They're all clear, although their defensive talismans are pretty much fully depleted." The cultivator who was operating the formation said.
The head of the guards nodded and then looked at Shirong.
"Tell us what happened in detail." The head guard spoke in a serious tone.
The man knew how severe the situation was right now. Among the people that had died, there were some cultivators with important identities. There were even two heirs of a clan with them while the rest of them were all core condensation realm cultivators, which were higher members of the clans.
In the clans, a nascent soul realm cultivator was already qualified to become its patriarch, and thus the core condensation realm cultivators were enough to be given the position of elders. The loss of even a single elder was a blow to the strength and power of the clan.
The head guard needed to ensure that he got all the facts correctly, or even his life could be on the line.
"We went in as we had originally planned, but soon after getting about a quarter of the way in we were attacked. It was a beast… a very strong beast. I… I could not even see its cultivation base. It happened rather fast, we tried to run, but the beast was much stronger." Shirong said and took a pause, pretending as if he was tired.
The head guard did not prod him further and let him take a short rest. Meanwhile, Shirong was actually trying to gauge the reaction of the head guard and his two followers. Ye Dai and Bei Wen were simply hanging their heads low, but he could tell that they were picking up on everything he said and were listening intently. He estimated this should be enough of a break and continued.
"We were reduced to about ten men after not even five minutes and continued escaping towards the center of hate forbidden zone. We couldn't turn back as the beast was behind us. The beast didn't even let us take a clear look before he had already killed our companions, it was simply too fast.
Then when we were running, I was able to get a glimpse at it… I couldn't get a grasp on its appearance it was something completely unlike I've ever seen or heard of. Its body was hidden in a veil of some kind and prevented us from seeing its true form.
It kept on taking down our companions one by one until eventually only three of us were left. Finally, we had reached close enough to the center that the beast stopped following us. I do not know the reason for it at that time, but soon enough we discovered it.
Our defensive talismans were deteriorating at a visible speed. The more one went towards the center of the zone, the stronger the toxins and fumes got. This pretty much put us in a dilemma. We could either stay there or go back out the same way we came from.
Finally, we made our choice. We… burned our cultivation bases and used a trump card to escape the area." Shirong explained.
"This guy is a professional actor, I say!" Lin Wu said feeling impressed.
Report chapter
The guards were appalled by the story that Shirong had said, but they didn't know whether to believe it or not. If it was really a beast as strong as he had said, it was even they should have died. Even a nascent soul realm cultivator had died back then for heaven's sake!
But Shirong's next sentence convinced them.
"I used a peak grade teleportation talisman to move us to the edge of the zone," Shirong stated and then immediately withdrew what looked like a triangular plate that was cracked from the center.
As soon as the head guard saw it he was surprised, but he then probed the plate with his own spirit sense.
"It's true… the talisman was used recently, it still has traces of spatial fluctuations on it." He spoke to the rest of the guard.
~Gasp~
All of the guards took a collective breath upon hearing the confirmation. A peak grade talisman such as a teleportation formation was an extremely valuable thing that countless cultivators would desire. Even Dao shell realm cultivates would have a hard time obtaining one, not to mention a core condensation realm cultivator like Shirong.
But the presence of the peak grade teleportation talisman also made the guards aware about the background of Young Master Shirong. While they knew that he was from a big clan, they did not know his exact standing there. For all they knew he could be some third rate cultivator that had to fortune to join it.
But him being in the possession of a peak grade talisman meant that his standing was no less than of the heir itself. As no clan would give the possession of an important item like this to any normal member of the clan unless they were extremely important.
In addition to the guards, the two followers of Shirong were shocked too. They had no idea that Young Master Shirong was in possession of something like this. But what they were even more shocked about was the condition of the formation.
It still had spatial fluctuation on it meant that it was used at least an hour ago and the two knew where they were an hour ago. They had defiantly not seen Shirong use that talisman or they perhaps would have not been in this situation.
'Don't tell me… did young master Shirong really destroy a peak grade teleportation talisman for this?' Ye Dai thought.
Bei Wen's thoughts were the same, but he was also thinking of the time when they were trapped in the bottom of the lake.
'So young master was saying the truth when he said that he was going to surely save us. He had this peak grade teleportation talisman as a safety measure.' In Bei Wen's mind, the respect for Young Master Shirong rose by another level.
Meanwhile, Shirong was pissed in his mind.
'Dammit, this better be worth it and they don't question us further. I do not want to fight so many guards together when they have the support of formation arrays.' Shirong thought with frustration.
When he was being checked Shirong could see that the formation was not a single one but rather a large circuit composed of multiple formations combining to form a formation array. The support of a formation array could greatly increase the strength and abilities of a cultivator.
With the right formations, even a qi refining realm cultivator could kill a nascent soul realm cultivator with ease. Shirong could identify some of the formations and realized that it was a rather complex array, which could be dangerous for him if he ended up in a conflict with the guards.
Shirong could also assume from this that this formation array was linked to the rest of the outposts and thus made the structure of the barrier itself. He could imagine the spirit qi supply that was powering it. If the formation array targeted them with the support of even just the head guard, they would not escape it easily.
But the thing that was troubling Shirong the most was that they even had a formation that could check the contents of a spatial storage treasure. While he knew it was likely that they won't check his without a proper reason because of his background, he was still not fully sure.
'If I had known there were so many guards and this formation array here, I would have never killed those people like that and would have taken a different approach. Or I should have just used the peak grade teleportation talisman to teleport us away from the outpost.
Everything was messed up because of them. I'll have to report this to the patriarch. The Ling Kingdom is definitely planning something big. There is no way some measly clans from a secondary city like Deer Wood city could keep up with the costs of running a formation array like this they are being supported by someone big." Shirong determined.
"The cultivators of the royal court!… They never told the full story, did they? The spear was also at the outer area, of course they must have tried to take it with them and then failed.' Shirong suddenly realized.
Just as this was happening, another guard walked into the room and spoke.
"I have informed the clans about everything. They have asked us to escort them to the Deer Wood city immediately." The newly entered guard spoke.
~Phew~
As soon as Shirong heard the guard's words he knew that the toughest part was over and let out a silent breath in relief.
The head guard looked at the informant and nodded his head.
"Do you need a carriage or are you able to fly on your own?" The head guard asked the Trio.
"We can fly on our own, we… will manage," Shirong answered for the three of them and the other two also nodded in acknowledgment.
"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk… this guy is still pretending huh? Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing or what is it that they say? Umm… oh yeah, pretending to be a pig to eat a tiger." Lin Wu said upon witnessing the entire thing.
Report chapter
Six people were currently flying through a forest on swords. They were none other than Shirong, Ye Dai, Bei Wen, the head guard and two additional guards. Shirong and his two followers were flying slower than their normal speed, pretending to show that they were injured, which they actually were, but not as much as they were exaggerating.
Shirong had been able to hoodwink the guards by paying a large price, which was none other than the destruction of a peak grade teleportation talisman. His heart was aching with regret but he knew that it was necessary and that one thing may have saved him from potential death.
Even while flying, he was thinking of what to do next. Before leaving the forbidden zone he had a plan in his mind, but it was soon messed up because of a few things. The main one being the capabilities of the guard. Their numbers and resources were completely different than he had been informed of.
Meanwhile, Lin Wu was still observing the entire thing from inside the spatial storage ring. He had a connection with Shirong through his spirit sense and was thus able to see everything that was happening outside, at least up to a certain limit.
Lin Wu could only see and hear the things that were in the range of Shirong's spirit sense and thus if he intended or contracted it, the sensing range would change for Lin Wu as well.
~Sigh~
"I'll need to find a better way to see things on the outside. While the system can help me out for the most part, I still need to learn to do stuff myself." Lin Wu muttered to himself.
They had been flying for about ten minutes now and had gotten quite a distance from the guard outpost. But even now there did not seem to be any city in their sights. Lin Wu wondered how far it exactly was, as the last time he remembered the system had told him that the nearest city, the Deer wood city was a couple of hundred kilometers from his location.
But that information was quite only, and Lin Wu had changed his position many times from then. From all he knew, he could potentially be even farther from that place. Lin Wu was now starting to get bored, thus decided to see the items that were in the ring.
"There should be some good stuff in here that I can stea… uh, borrow. Yes, borrow." Lin Wu said before floating to the items.
The system had established a virtual ring interface function, which allowed Lin Wu to leave and enter the ring at will. While this was one of the primary uses of the function, there were additional things that may be possible as the system increased its understanding.
It being able to make a function like this so quick was already quite enough.
Lin Wu relaxed his body and the interlocking spurs loosened, allowing him to become lithe again. He still kept the shape he had formed as he wanted to be able to return to the form in a jiffy if he was ever summoned outside the ring by Shirong.
This way he could simply tighten the spurs and they would interlock again in less than a second. The system would tell him when he was going to be summoned anyway and could even delay the process by taking advantage of the fact that Shirong thought he was a pseudo immortal tool.
Lin Wu moved his body similar to swimming and moved over to the items that were floating around in the ring. There were a ton of them and around half of the ring had been filled. Lin Wu could see mundane and everyday items like clothes, pans, brushes, all the way to precious items like alchemical pills and spirit stones.
Although Lin Wu had not seen any alchemical pills or spirit stones until now, the system still had the information in its data banks from the data nodes that it had absorbed. Not to mention that Lin Wu could feel the spirit qi fluctuation coming off of the items.
Lin Wu first came to a pouch that was floating near him and looked into it, finding hundreds of fingernail sized translucent white stones kept in them.
"System, scan them." Lin Wu ordered.
~Ding~
——
SCANNING TARGET: Completed
TARGET IDENTIFIED: Low grade spirit stones, quantity:600
——
"Oh, so this is what the spirit stones look like, huh?" Lin Wu muttered as he looked around the ring.
There were about twenty more similar looking pouches floating around the ring and all of them were exuding spirit qi from them.
'Are these all spirit stones? Only one way to find out…' Lin Wu thought before ordering the system to scan them all.
Soon Lin Wu got an estimate of all the spirit stones that were present in the ring. And he was shocked, to say the least after seeing it.
"Hot damn! Seems like I caught a whale!" Lin Wu exclaimed, with imaginary money symbols appearing in his eyes.
According to the system's calculation, there were-
Nine thousand low grade spirit stones.
Two thousand three hundred mid grade spirit stones.
And finally, Fifty four high grade spirit stones.
It was an extremely large fortune if Lin Wu counted them as liquid spirit qi units. But even then, that was not the end of it. There were far more things that were exuding even stronger spirit qi fluctuations.
Lin Wu was of course curious and like a nosy gold digger, started to check every single item. At one point he got bored of scanning all the items one by one and wondered if there was a more efficient way to do it.
"System, can you just scan the entire ring all at once?" Lin Wu questioned.
~Ding~
——
ANSWER: Scanning the entire ring is possible.
NOTIFICATION: Should the system scan the entire ring? Y/N
——
"Scan all the items and tell me what is the most precious thing and the most powerful thing here." Lin Wu ordered, feeling excited.
Report chapter
It had been about twenty minutes since Lin Wu had ordered the system to scan the objects and it still had not finished it. This led Lin Wu to believe that there were definitely things here that were currently beyond the system's capabilities and were straining its Data banks.
Lin Wu took a quick look outside and saw that Shirong his two followers, the escorting guards were close to the Deer Wood city now. In fact, Lin Wu could hear their conversations and from it, he realized that there was more stuff happening than was being shown right now.
"There will be the people from the clans waiting for use outside. So make sure that you two are on your best behavior." The head guard spoke to his fellow guards.
'Oh? So these two are not from the city… Hmm, perhaps I should gather where they came from and maybe then I'll get some clues as to who's backing the clans. If they were from the city, then they would have known who the people from the clans were.' Shirong thought to himself as he listened to their conversation.
Shirong had only been able to recognize the head guard as he had seen him before when they left for the forbidden zone thus he just thought that all guards from the city. But seeing their numbers and cultivation bases, it was apparent that they could not be from the city, as there would simply not be enough people with that level of cultivation bases.
"Damn, hopefully the system finishes its scan before we enter the city. I don't know what will happen if I am summoned midway." Lin Wu muttered to himself.
Five more minutes passed, and the six people were now right in front of the city gates. They could not directly fly into the city as that was against the rules and would be punishable by a fine and prison time. This was rather common law and was applicable to almost all major cities and capitals.
Still, there were exceptions to this rule and certain people could directly fly in the city. Shirong was one of the cultivators who had the permission to do so, but the other five did not. Also, with the people from the clans meeting them outside, there wasn't much he could do.
~Ding~
——
SCANNING: Completed.
OBJECTS: Identified= 258 Unidentified= 3
NOTIFICATION: Please view the detailed description in the relevant window.
——
Finally, the system had finished scanning all the objects and the notification popped up with a long list of objects that it had scanned.
"Right in time!" Lin Wu said and then looked over the list.
Most of the objects in the list were not that unusual and thus did not incite Lin Wu's interest. But the most interesting things were none other than the objects that were unidentifiable. This meant that they were the reason behind the system's long process.
While Lin Wu could not see the information about these unidentified objects, he could still see their appearance in the window.
The first object looked like a piece of rubber that had a strange pink color. There was no spirit qi coming from it either, thus Lin Wu was wondering if it was just some trash. But then, seeing that it was in Shirong's spatial storage ring, he thought otherwise.
The second unidentifiable object was a rolled up sheet of paper that was about half a meter long. Unlike the previous object though, this one had a certain kind of aura on it. It wasn't spirit qi though; it was different than that.
'Hmm, it's definitely something valuable.' Lin Wu thought.
The third and final object was a pendant that was crafted from a blue stone of some kind. It had a rather simple circular shape, if not for the unique character that was imprinted on both of its sides. Lin Wu could tell that they were different from the writing of this world, or at least wasn't the one that he had seen.
The system had already learned the language of this world, thus Lin Wu didn't really have any problem with it and it was as if he had known it all along. But this pendant had an additional thing mentioned in the list- Error!: cannot be scanned.
This was the only object which was unable to be identified because it could not be scanned.
"System, why could you not scan this pendant?" Lin Wu asked, feeling a bit surprised.
~Ding~
——
ANSWER: The pendant has a certain kind of a barrier that the system cannot go through. The complexity of the barrier is higher than any other that the system has seen till now and will require further analysis to deduce the method.
——
"Interesting…" Lin Wu muttered as he looked at the jade pendant.
He then looked back at the list, reading through the objects that were actually identified. Lin Wu had asked the system to tell him the most valuable and powerful objects out of all of them, thus the system had ordered them according to that.
He first set the filter to the most valuable object and was presented with the most obvious choices.
"Huh, so the spirit stones are the most valuable object here? But wait, aren't they of different types why are they classified together…" Lin Wu said as he then saw a small drop down arrow.
He focused on it and the list expanded even more, showing that the high grade spirit stones were of the highest value.
'Ah… I see now. Similar types of objects will be grouped together and can be sorted further.' Lin Wu thought to himself.
He then saw that the rest of the valuable objects were just different assortments of alchemical pills. There were about twenty types of pills in the ring and from reading the description, Lin Wu got to know of their uses. There were pills that helped in cultivation, pills that were for healing, and even pills that were for "Special needs".
"Hehe, men are the same everywhere, whether it be my previous world or a cultivation world like this."
Report chapter
Lin Wu wanted to continue looking at the list in detail but unfortunately, the events happening in the outside world made it so that he wanted to be ready for any potential danger.
He looked outside through the connection that he had with Shirong and saw that he, his two companions, and the guards were currently being taken to the inside of the city. They went through a certain formation array that was set up in the gateway of the city and shone on them while they walked in it.
Even Lin Wu could feel the probe of the formation and felt strange about it.
"Humph!" Shirong grunted lightly and then secretly gestured with his fingers.
A transparent barrier had covered his body the moment the probing of the formation happened and whatever it was trying to do to him was unable to be accomplished.
'Huh, what was that?' Lin Wu wondered.
He too had sensed the formation doing something and has also seen Shirong creating a barrier.
"System what just happened?" Lin Wu questioned.
~Ding~
——
ANSWER: The formation array was placing a certain kind of tracing formation on Shirong which was then stopped by his own barrier.
——
"Huh, a tracing formation? Seems like the people that run this city are either suspicious of him or maybe they just do it to everyone that enters the city. Either way isn't this a big privacy violation? Pretty much like a 'modern world tech conglomerate' like behavior…" Lin Wu said.
Lin Wu saw that while the formation was being placed on Shirong the other people had not reacted, which meant that they were in the blind about it as well.
"System is the formation hard to detect? Why have the others not sensed it?" Lin Wu questioned.
~Ding~
——
ANSWER: For the system, it is very basic to be able to sense the formation but for the cultivators, it may be quite difficult. According to the system's estimate, they would need to have a spirit sense that was strong enough to be able to sense the formation and even better skills to actually be able to stop it.
——
Lin Wu was reminded of the concept called spirit sense. He had of course heard about it and read about it in the countless cultivation novels of his past, but this was his actual first experience with it. He had seen the spirit sense being shown in the systems information windows but had only seen it on the dead cultivators till now.
He wondered if he could use it too, and what the method for it could be.
"System, how can I obtain spirit sense of my own?" Lin Wu questioned with interest while taking another look outside in the real world.
Seeing that nothing special was happening for now and that they were all simply walking, Lin Wu decided to continue inquiring the system.
~Ding~
——
ANSWER: Spirit sense is one of the most basic skills of a cultivator. According to the data that the system has analyzed and the one that was directly obtained from the data nodes, spirit sense can be obtained by using the spirit qi to make spirit qi tendrils.
This process is called as the spirit sense refinement and is usually only possible for the cultivators that are in the late stage of the qi refining realm and above. But from system's own analysis, this is not completely true, and it is actually possible to refine spirit sense in the early stage of the qi refining realm as well.
The reason behind cultivators unable to refine the spirit sense lies in their cultivation technique. The methods to refine spirit sense are mentioned in the cultivation techniques that they practice, and they can differ in effectiveness and difficulty.
The system can devise a simplified method from the data obtained, and the host can use that method to refine the spirit sense.
Note: The system cannot refine the spirit sense for the host, as it is a manual process and its control fully depends on the host itself. If the Host wants though, system can refine a secondary spirit sense that can be used by the system. If more data is obtained and data banks are updated, the system can analyze and devise improved methods as well.
——
Lin Wu took a while to read and understand the response of the system. It was quite a long one and detailed as well.
'Hmm, so it's like this, huh? Even if I don't have a cultivation technique, I can still cultivate and so it's good that I can still refine my own spirit sense.' Lin Wu thought to himself.
"Alright! System, give me the method to refine spirit sense, I want to learn it myself." Lin Wu ordered.
~Ding~
——
NOTIFICATION: Should the system start the analysis of the data to devise a spirit sense refinement method? Y/N.
NOTE: This process will require the computational A.I and the system energy will be used.
——
"How much energy will it require?" Lin Wu questioned.
After the past few changes in the system's different storages, Lin Wu wanted to be sure of how much he used up in each task. He didn't want to give permission for something that may evidently drain all of his Henry and leave him helpless in the face of the danger.
~Ding~
——
NOTIFICATION: The system energy will be continually used until the analysis is complete.
NOTE: The host can also pause the analysis process, and it will not be lost. This will also halt the utilization of the system energy.
——
~Phew~
After seeing the system's answer, Lin Wu was relieved and felt that this was much better.
'If it's like this, then it shouldn't be a problem.' Lin Wu thought.
"Alright, system go ahead and start the analysis process." Lin Wu permitted.
~Ding~
——
PERMISSION GRANTED: Starting data analysis for devising Spirit sense refinement technique.
COMPUTATIONAL A.I.: Activated.
TIME REQUIRED: Not defined.
——
"Now to just wait and watch, hopefully it is done soon." Lin Wu said and looked at the Host data.
"What the fuuuuuu…"
Lin Wu glanced at the system energy storage in the host data window and saw it falling much faster than he had thought.
SYSTEM ENERGY STORAGE: 7542 units
…7533
…7520
…7498
…7400
"Damn, I didn't expect it to fall this fast!" Lin Wu muttered in shock as he kept on looking.
The reduction continued at the same pace for about a minute, after which it started to slow down and then almost halted.
SYSTEM ENERGY STORAGE: 7002 units
~Phew~
Lin Wu took a breath of relief and guessed that it was consumed so fast as the system needed to at the start to begin the process. He kept on looking and saw the storage decrease again. But this time it happened after an interval of five minutes.
SYSTEM ENERGY STORAGE: 6992 units
"Oh, is it now going to consume it in specific time periods?" Lin Wu wondered.
He waited again and then confirmed it. Five minutes later, ten more units were consumed.
SYSTEM ENERGY STORAGE: 6982 units
"Okay, so that's confirmed. Hmm… ten units every five minutes that's about one twenty units every hour. That's fine, I guess… no wait," Lin Wu said.
"System, the system energy being consumed, what unit is it in? Is equivalent to liquid spirit qi drops or wisps?" Lin Wu questioned, feeling nervous.
~Ding~
——
ANSWER: The units are equivalent to wisp rather than drops as the host only asked to set it for the spirit qi storage and not for the others.
——
~Phew~
"Oh boy, that almost scared me. If it's in just wisps, then take it… take as much as you want. I'm gonna leech off this whale anyway, Hehehe." Lin Wu said with a glint in his eyes.
He took his attention off the Host data window and focused back on the real world. Because the spirit sense of Shirong was currently only spread in an area of five meters, Lin Wu couldn't see beyond it and thus couldn't see how the city looked like.
In the five meter area that he could actually see, there was nothing much except for the paved road and a few lamp posts that passed by at the side.
"Why are there no more people here?" Lin Wu wondered.
But a few seconds later it hit him.
"Oh no, wait! They are being escorted by the guards, no wonder there isn't anyone coming near them." Lin Wu realized.
Five more minutes passed and the group had walked quite deep into the city. Even if they were simply walking, they were still quite faster than a normal human, and it seemed more like they were running instead. It was a bit comical to Lin Wu and he was reminded of one of those speed walking competitions he had seen on the Television.
"If people saw someone walking like this out on the streets back in my past life, they would laugh like crazy. Only in the competitions does it seem normal…" Lin Wu chuckled.
Finally, Lin Wu saw the scene change and it looked like a building had appeared in front of them. Because the range of spirit sense extended five meters in all directions, Lin Wu could tell that the building was tall and had more than one story as even at the height of five meters it didn't end.
The building itself was made from a combination of bricks and polished stone tiles. From its quality of work, Lin Wu could tell that this was probably an important building in this city and was probably used by important people.
"Come on, why is no one talking anymore?" Lin Wu complained.
No one was really talking and there was an eerie silence while the guards escorted Shirong, Ye Dai, and Bei Wen. Finally, they entered what looked like a hall that had a throne like chair at the end and multiple smaller chairs along the right and left side.
All of the chairs were currently occupied, and the people sitting on them had serious expressions on their faces. Lin Wu saw the entourage stop in front of the old man sitting on the throne like chair. The old man had a calm expression on his face unlike the other people and was tapping the armrest of the chair.
"Young Master Shirong, I'm relieved that you were able to come back safe and sound." The old man spoke in a concerned tone.
"Clan Head Lu, I'm extremely sorry that I was not able to save the people who so graciously decided to accompany me despite the danger. I had told you that I would bring them back safely but I have failed, I… have disgraced my name." Shirong stated and bowed his head.
The expression of the Lu clan head changed upon hearing his apology and he then saw him doing something which made his brow set. The Lu clan head shot up from his seat and held on to the shoulders of Shirong.
"No! Young Master Shirong, you cannot bow your head to me… please it's not your fault. The people that accompanied you, even if they were from our clans knew exactly what they were getting into. I cannot take the burden of your bow." The Lu Clan Head said while gulping down his saliva.
It was evident that Shirong was about to bow to the Lu Clan head in apology, but the clan head stopped it. But while Shirong's head was slightly bent and his face was hidden from the people, Lin Wu saw the smirk on his face that faded away in an instant.
"Bravo! Bravo! What expression! What art!" Lin Wu praised upon seeing his acting.
Unlike the others, Lin Wu could see and hear what Shirong was muttering clearly and knew that he was intentionally doing this to throw off the clan's suspicion if it were to ever come.
Most of the other people that were sitting in the room were also affected by this and they became concerned. Still, there were a handful of people that did not seem pleased by this and were trying to suppress it from being shown on their faces.
"I got you now…" Shirong muttered silently.
Report chapter
Shirong had intentionally presented himself like this and wanted to make himself look vulnerable so that he could find out the people who were truly behind this all.
The increased security was not something that could be afforded by the clans of the Deer Wood city and there was no way the top 3 clans of the city would ever let someone else assist them as it would mean conceding a certain level of power to them.
Shirong had a guess that some of the smaller clans and minor powers of the city had disguised some of the men from the Kingdom's capital and had made it seem like they were providing the resources. This made them look selfless and also elevated their image in the eyes of the top three clans of the Deer Wood city.
They were also the ones that would suffer from the demise of the men that had died along with Shirong and would have to answer the ones that were secretly backing them. They were the ones that had to send out the more influential and stronger member of their clans so as to make it genuine, and they were the ones that had the biggest losses as well.
They initially wanted to demand compensation and put the blame on top of this Young master Shirong but now with his display, the clan head Lu was already in his favor and the other top three were also likely to follow with him, that meant the smaller powers and clans had no right to interfere… or rather they could not afford to.
Right now all they could do was grit their teeth and appear amicable or suffer the potential consequences. Such was the game of politics and if they wanted to continue playing, they had to follow the unspoken rules. Breaking them meant that while they could get some benefits in the short term, they would be out of the entire game after that and would lose the bigger opportunities.
Shirong saw that out of the twenty people in the hall, who represented the Powers of the city, about four of them were displeased with him. He identified them and realized that out of the four, two were the clan heads of the smaller clans, while the other two were the heads of a merchant company that operated out of the city and had multiple businesses.
'Hmm, so there are four of them in the open, but there should be more hidden. Just these four won't be able to convince the top three clans that the manpower and resources belonged to them, there's bound to be more that have hidden their true intentions better.
But even in these four, there are chances that they are not the pawns that I am thinking them to be. If I remember correctly, one of the clan heirs that died belonged to one of these smaller clans. But the two merchant heads, they are definitely involved. They are the only ones who would be able to easily provide the resources without much suspicion, as they could simply show as if they were being procured from somewhere else.' Shirong analyzed quickly.
Having spent so many years in a powerful clan and becoming its young master had enhanced his ability to assess politics to a great degree. If he were to claim that he was second in this hall, there was no one else that was qualified to be the first.
Even the experienced clan Head Lu was nothing in front of young master Shirong who had seen many complex and cruel schemes.
But it still came down to his current situation. While Shirong could depend on his clan's power to suppress all of these people here, it would also mean that he was showing his entire hand. One should not forget that a dragon that is not in his home turf is weaker than the snake that lives there.
Shirong was still unsure of the goal of the power backing these small clans here, thus he did not want to take the chance.
Shirong lightly lifted his head and cupped his hands again.
"Clan head Lu and all the people currently in this hall, I swear on my honor that I will find a way to properly give an answer and if you still do not find it adequate I shall compensate you." Shirong declared to everyone.
"Young Master Shirong this…" Clan Head Lu said, feeling shocked.
"Please clan head, this is the least I can do to satisfy them and let the souls of those that perished rest," Shirong said with a humble expression.
~Sigh~
Clan Head Lu let out a sigh and the other two top clan heads also shook their heads.
"ALRIGHT!" Clan head Lu shouted while clapping his hands. "You've heard young master Shirong, go ahead with your inquiries."
Shirong turned around and looked at all the people in the hall. The guards that had escorted him were now standing at the side of the entrances as they were not qualified to be in the middle while the rest of the people were looking at Shirong intently.
The ones that had shown their displeasure now had poker faces, while the others were clearly pleased with Shirong because of his words.
"I fully believe Young master Shirong's words and have nothing to say," Clan head Xiong spoke in a flattering tone.
Xiong clan was the number two in the top three clans and its head had long since been trying to bootlick Shirong ever since he got here. There was no way he could let go of this chance to get into his good books, besides the one man that he had sent with Shirong was an external elder of his clan that could be sacrificed.
"I agree with clan Head Xiong and believe Young Master Shirong's words as well," Said the Mu clan head.
The Mu clan was the number three of the top three clans and was the most neutral among the clans, yet he did not feel like there was much benefit in questioning Shirong. Either way, he had made no losses as he had never sent anyone from his clan.
"Nice! He got the top three in the bag already. This is fun, it is like I'm watching one of those old period dramas again…" Lin Wu said, clearly enjoining everything.
Report chapter
Seeing that the top three were in agreement with Young Master Shirong, some of the other clans started to speak up as well. Out of the seventeen remaining Powers in the hall, seven were clearly in Shirong's favor and were willing to let go of the sacrifice that was made.
Of the remaining ten, four were in clear disagreement with Shirong's words and four were neutral. The final two were in the middle, but it seemed like all they wanted was to get compensated and were not fully displeased with Young master Shirong.
Shirong cupped his hands again and spoke, "Please, go ahead and ask me whatever you'd like gentlemen."
"Young Master Shirong, we heard that a beast attacked you. While we heard the account from the guards, I still want to hear your firsthand experience." Spoke one of the two clan heads that were displeased with Shirong.
He recognized this man to be the clan head of the Ping clan. Shirong pretended to think for a few seconds before answering.
"The beast that we encountered was nothing I've ever seen or heard of before. I could not sense its cultivation base and neither could see its true appearance as it was hidden behind a veil of some kind that distorted its form. It was about the size of an elephant and was quite fast as well.
It didn't even take five minutes to wipe out half of our party. We had to use everything in our reseal to escape it. But even then, our misfortune didn't end. We all were greatly mistaken about the corrosiveness of the environment of the forbidden zone. In the end, only me, Ye Dai and Bei Wen were left alive.
The more we got towards the center, the stronger the corrosiveness of the invisible fumes and toxins got. When we were near the crater the deterioration of the defensive talismans was nearly a hundred times as strong as it was at the edge of the forbidden zone. When we were near the crater, the beast stopped chasing us as it seemed like even it did not dare to get closer to the center.
Our defensive talismans were depleting at an alarming rate of one per minute. We knew that we could not escape from the other side of the crater as the beast could very easily circle around and catch up to us, after all the circular area that the beast was reluctant to enter was of only about a hundred meters.
Seeing that we had no other choice, I used a trump card that my clan had given me to use in case of dire emergencies." Shirong explained and took a pause.
He then withdrew the Peak grade teleporting talisman that he had shown the guards before.
~Gasp~
Everyone in the room hissed with shock. While they had heard that Young Master had used a Peak Grade teleportation formation, they thought that there was a chance the guards were mistaken. But now they saw it with their own two eyes and even sensed the faint spatial fluctuations from it, they had no chance but to believe it.
Seeing this, the parties which were neutral till now were fully convinced and the two clans that merely wanted compensation were now rethinking about their aim. They were assessing whether it was worth to potentially offend the young Master of a clan that could give him a peak grade teleportation formation as a trump card.
A few seconds later they shook their heads and gave up on it. They knew that it was a guarantee that they would be compensated by Young Master Shirong, but what will be its after-effects? To them, it was simply more beneficial to have him in their favor.
"We agree with Young Master Shirong as well now." The two small clan heads declared their stance.
Now the only ones that were remaining were the two merchants and the other two small clan heads.
"Young Master Shirong while your word seem convincing, I still have some doubts about their authenticity." Spoke the clan head whose heir had died.
Shirong recognized him to be the head of Beilao clan. The heir that belonged to their clan was none other than the weakest member of the excursion party, the guy with the early stage core condensation realm cultivation base.
"And why is that clan head Beilao?" Shirong asked in an amicable tone.
"You see," Clan Head Beilao said and withdrew something from his pocket. "This is the soul light bead that belonged to my son. I believe clan head Lu can see when its brightness died down."
Clean Head Lu closed his eyes for a moment and used his spirit sense to check the soul light bead. A moment later he opened his eyes and a frown appeared on his face.
"Seems like clan head Lu understood. The timeline does not match. If it was really as Young Master Shirong said it was then, why did the light of the bead go off later than it should have? This only means that my son died much later than you are claiming." Clan Head Beilao uttered with an accusing tone.
Shirong did not show any change in his expression, but inwardly he was surprised as well.
'How the hell did a small clan like them get a soul light bead?' Shirong thought.
Soul light beasts were a type of mid grade spirit tools whose sole function was to know when or if a person who had used the soul light bead died. The soul light bead would glow till the person was alive and would then go out if they died and would also record when they died.
"Clan head Beilao I'm extremely sorry, but it seems like I lost a great opportunity to save young Master Beilao," Shirong said in a sad tone. "Perhaps, young master Beilao suffered great injuries but was still able to survive the initial attack."
The people watched Shirong say this and felt a bit shocked while clan Head Beilao was gritting his teeth.
"But fear not, Young master Beilao is also the one who will bring everyone justice. You see, during the initial ambush we were able to exchange a few blows with the beast and during this, the beast got a little injury. This was caused by none other than young master Beilao who used the armor shearing talisman." Shirong said and then withdrew something from his ring, showing it to everyone.
Report chapter