novelraw Chapter 159
Chapter 159
Five years.
It had been five years of rapid realm advancement. Even without the aid of pills, his cultivation soared quickly. Among those with dual spiritual roots, he stood at the very top tier.
Just through the two Idle Slots, he had accumulated ninety thousand strands of spiritual power, which was equivalent to ninety drops of True Essence. In addition, through his own painstaking cultivation, he had gained another twelve drops.
Now it was the sixth month of the fifth year of his career as a Deacon.
He had reached the second layer of Foundation Establishment, with his true essence having accumulated to one hundred and thirty-two drops. Even within the second layer, this was not at the initial stage. Once he reached three hundred drops, he could break through to the third layer of Foundation Establishment.
At five hundred drops, he would face the first great checkpoint of the Foundation Establishment stage, known as “Condensing Essence.”
Currently, the arrangement of the idle slots was as follows:
【Idle Slot 1: Heavenly Cold Yin Blood Art】
【Idle Slot 2: Heavenly Cold Yin Blood Art】
“Heavenly Cold Yin Blood Art (33/100): 48 session times a day, Master in 20 years.”【Idle Slot 3: Taiyin Nether Eye (second-rank)】
“Taiyin Nether Eye (100/100): nothing further to be Derived.”
【Idle Slot 4: Frost Moon Wings】
“Frost Moon Wings (20/100): 12 session times a day, Master in 8 years.”
【Idle Slot 5: Corpse Demon Secret Technique (in completion ↑)】
“Corpse Demon Secret Technique (50/100): practiced 1,440 times a day, Master in ten years.”
Regarding cultivation methods.
After the Cold Blood Spirit Ascension Art reached perfection, its effect of enhancing aptitude had already been activated, so it was no longer useful.
The Heavenly Cold Yin Blood Art itself was a Foundation Establishment cultivation method. To perfect it required only thirty years of Idle Slot practice, and due to its profound foundation, the Idle Slot should be able to push it up to third-rank.
This alone meant the Heavenly Cold Yin Blood Art would bring even greater benefits. As for cultivation speed, ever since obtaining dual spiritual root aptitude, the minor boosts from perfected methods were no longer impressive. It was worth replacing.
The Taiyin Nether Eye in slot three, with its cultivation within the Illusionary Moon Domain, had just reached perfection today. From past experience, in order to unlock the next stage, he would have to break through to the Core Formation realm and acquire it from the inheritance jade slip.
After some thought, Wang Yu placed “Searching Mountains and Hunting Demons” into the slot. This secret art came from the Ancient Soul inheritance and was precisely the ability Wang Yu lacked. He had not practiced it much in recent years.
【Idle Slot 3: Searching Mountains and Hunting Demons】
“Searching Mountains and Hunting Demons (10/100): practiced 144 times a day, can be Mastered in nine years.”
The Idle Slots allowed one practice every ten minutes. Truly, the Innate Ox-Horse Sacred Body was extraordinary. According to his future plans, Heavenly Soul Qi, Soul Shattering Finger, and Demon Heart Control Sound would all have to be arranged.
Wang Yu estimated that his entire Foundation Establishment career would be tied to these inherited methods.
After reviewing his five years of gains, Wang Yu went out to purchase supplies. He spent all the spirit stones he had accumulated, focusing mainly on medicinal reserves, a second-rank pill furnace, a second-rank flying boat, second-rank formation flags, and other such costly items.
Thus, ten days later, the day of departure arrived.
“Do you really plan to go so early?”
“Yes, whether a day early or a day late, it makes little difference.”
Wang Yu raised his hand to stop the Three Young Master, who still wanted to speak further. “That is enough. Thank you for your protection during this period. But I have my own path to walk.”
Aside from their transactions, the three of them were actually good people. After spending time together, they understood each other more.
But staying in the sect made many things inconvenient.
Just selling pills alone, he could not bypass the Alchemy Hall. Their jurisdiction was too strict. Once his spirit stones ran out, he would have to take risks again to seize benefits from the sect. Doing this too much could easily lead to disaster. Better to be free outside.
Moreover, since he still wanted to improve his spiritual root aptitude, he had to look beyond the sect. Within the sect, disciples mostly had triple spiritual roots, which no longer offered him any improvement.
Dual spiritual roots existed, but most were taken as disciples by a master-disciple lineage and could not be touched.
He only needed the Blood Reversal Sect as his backing to provide him with subsequent cultivation methods. Other resources he would naturally earn on his own.
After saluting the three, Wang Yu released a newly refined small flying vessel called the Flying Cloud Boat.
It could carry three to five people. With a single low-grade spirit stone, it could fly for half an hour. Its speed matched that of a Foundation Establishment cultivator. As a second-rank middle-grade artifact, it was considered a fine item.
“Fourth Brother, this is for you.”
As soon as he boarded the Flying Cloud Boat, Zuo Qiuming tossed him a jade slip.
“Inside is information about Jade Spirit City, the local clans, surrounding powers, and records of past profits.
“It also marks a few troublemakers and notes several Core Formation cultivators. Outside, you can rely on the third-rank middle-grade formation that the sect placed in the City Lord’s mansion. Be very careful.”
Wang Yu understood. He had gathered some intelligence himself, but it was not as detailed as theirs. He could study it carefully on the road.
“I understand. In that case, I bid you farewell. Next time we meet, it may be a hundred years later.”
With that, Wang Yu turned and drove the vessel, quickly heading into the distance.
In the place he could not see, Situ Hong reached the final checkpoint of his seclusion breakthrough.
Tantai Chan, on the side of Cold Blood Peak, gazed long into the direction he had departed.
Zhuo Shouqing and the others also watched for a while before sighing and returning.
Their relationship was mostly maintained by mutual benefit, but there was also a thin trace of sentiment mixed in. Not too much, not too little, just enough that they could barely be considered friends.
Time passed by in this departure.
…
…
Wang Yu flew all the way east. The so-called Jade Spirit City was located within the territory of the Blood Reversal Sect, in the smallest of its four provinces, and it was also the only one enclosed upright like a fenced domain.
Its name was Cloud Ridge Province.
With green mountains and clear waters, layer upon layer of ridges, more than eighty percent of the land was forest and mountains. The number of demonic beasts scattered throughout was not much fewer than those in perilous lands.
But there were no real strong beings here, making it suitable for low-realm cultivators to train.
Moreover, the entire province was covered in mist and fog. The cloud Qi seemed to surge up from underground, not only dense but also generally low-hanging, causing Cloud Ridge Province to remain shrouded in mist all year round with a colder climate.
Yet some people just happened to like this “immortal-like” environment, enjoying the feeling of kicking up white fog as they walked, as if living within a celestial paradise. This was Cloud Ridge.
Wang Yu sat at the bow of his boat, controlling the direction with a split of divine sense while carefully studying the jade slip’s information.
After reading the general details of the province, it was time to move to the key point: Jade Spirit City.
This city was built on a plain, with five urban districts, a permanent population of five hundred thousand, and a floating population exceeding one million. Every day, people from other lands came here to stay.
From this alone, Jade Spirit City stood at the top among the cities of the Crimson Kite Demonic Domain. With such a population, it was impossible for the city to be lacking.
It possessed one third-rank mid-grade spiritual vein, three second-rank high-grade spiritual veins, and dozens of first-rank spiritual lands derived from them. Its cultivation environment was first-rate.
Outside the city were eighty thousand qing of spirit fields and two hundred ninety thousand qing of ordinary farmland, half of which belonged to the City Lord’s Mansion. Inside the city, the five districts were divided into east, south, west, north, and central, with the City Lord’s Mansion located in the middle.
Three of the outer districts were controlled by cultivation clans. They operated three marketplaces and held the right to enforce law.
Only the central and northern districts were directly controlled by the City Lord’s Mansion.
“Bai, Guan, Jiang… three clans. Their patriarchs are all at the peak of Foundation Establishment. Within each clan there are usually five to eight Foundation Establishment cultivators, with more than a thousand cultivators in each family, skilled in many arts of cultivation.”
This number was not small. For clans of this type, anyone with spiritual roots was treated like a breeding stallion. Taking three wives and four concubines was normal in order to produce more offspring for the clan. If a child was born with spiritual roots, they would certainly step onto the path of cultivation.
This was not the same as the great sects, which held Spirit Testing Days.
Spirit Slaves were a unique product of the demonic path. They could be found from Qi Refining up to Core Formation, though that was a feature of wartime. In ordinary days, the highest were Foundation Establishment Spirit Slaves, mostly captured righteous cultivators.
As for clans dealing with those of poor aptitude, the most common and simple arrangement was to make them spirit farmers.
They cultivated spirit rice for the cultivation world. This oppressive system was a specialty of the Taihu Spiritual Domain.
The people of the Crimson Kite Demonic Domain had not yet perfected the system. Their death rate was much better than that of Spirit Slaves, but they still could not achieve full lifetime extraction without loss. In this regard, Taihu had more experience.
Using the housing provided in sect marketplaces, they could firmly bind the lives of Spirit Slaves, ensuring their descendants remained there for generations, supporting the cultivation of future generations.
All of this was just to produce a single powerful Foundation Establishment cultivator.
The more Wang Yu read, the tighter his brows furrowed. The system looked extremely familiar.
However, learning was one thing. Taihu’s methods could not be fully copied onto the Crimson Kite people.
In the Taihu Spiritual Domain, sects set up one marketplace after another as governing entities, extracting resources from endless rogue cultivators and first-generation cultivators.
In the Crimson Kite Demonic Domain, cities served as the secondary governing bodies, and the level of support was greater. In Wang Yu’s hands were not only the City Lord’s decree of Jade Spirit City but also the key to the third-rank mid-grade formation array.
As for how to profit in spirit stones, that was left to the City Lord. He could do as he pleased, as long as the population’s normal growth was ensured, the higher-ups would not interfere much.
And since the Zhuo Clan had obtained Jade Spirit City for him, its value was clearly higher than that of an ordinary spiritual vein city.
Looking further back in the records, past city lords were usually Core Formation cultivators, with the lowest being late Foundation Establishment inner sect elites. Wang Yu was the weakest in cultivation among all previous city lords.
Under such circumstances, it would indeed be difficult to fully control the city.
But with the backing of the upper sect’s name and the protection of the City Lord’s formation array, the situation would gradually improve as his cultivation rose. When he could truly suppress the city, resources would naturally flow in endlessly.
“There is some difficulty, but it is still within the range of challenge.”
Moreover, it would only get better.
The Three Young Masters of the Blood Reversal Sect had indeed given him a fat piece of meat, but whether he could keep hold of it would depend on his own methods.
After a long while, Wang Yu put down the jade slip of information and thought about how to establish his footing. Arriving at a new place came down to several choices.
1. Harmony brings wealth, share out benefits, stabilizing the situation temporarily, but the other side will only grow greedier and eventually things will collapse.
2. Flaunt the tiger skin of his sect, using its might to suppress people. The weak-willed could be cowed, but the hard-boned would likely fight directly.
3. Play along with false goodwill, secretly searching for weaknesses, then exterminating an entire clan to suppress through slaughter and brutality.
4. Give a show of power upon first meeting.
After considering it, if he could show strong dominance at first, then later offer a sweet date, it could stabilize the situation temporarily. Once he broke through to mid Foundation Establishment, he would have the confidence to fully control Jade Spirit City.
“For now, this will do. Everything will be decided once I arrive.”
At present, Wang Yu’s main concerns were matters inside the city. In truth, the troubles outside the city were even greater.