Chapter 185: The Price Of Becoming Strong!
Setting aside the matter about a certain Cardinal who continued to wait impatiently for the Sentinel, Holy Child, Elders, Grands and Heavenly Generals of his cult.
Duan Tianhe had just finished a video call with Deputy Zhou back in his office at the Lingzhou City Martial Arts Department (MAD), which lasted one hour and twenty-eight minutes.
Hanging up, Duan Tianhe breathed forced laughter as he rubbed his temples.
Truly...
Such a kick in the head!
Right now, all he could do as the chief of the Lingzhou City MAD was logistics or relaying information and intelligence... there was no helping it since he was too weak.
How long had it only been?
A month?
But how many Sky Demon Cultists had been killed within his jurisdiction in that time?
Leaving aside those beneath rank-nine, there were 11 Heavenly Generals killed—12, including the one at Mount Helan who was killed by panthers.
And ten Decans who outranked them were killed too!
Moreover, of their nine Elders, the Senior Elder as well as the Third, Fourth and Sixth Elders all died by Jiang He’s hand, basically halving their forces.
He even took down one of their two Sentinels!
As for Duan Tianhe himself, he had just reached rank-seven for about a month... but even the weakest amongst the dead cultist—the Tranquil Heavenly General would not lose to him...
Be that as it may, Duan Tianhe did not submit the usual after-action report over today’s events. He had the feeling this must be kept secret, because if the sleeper agent amongst their ranks learned about such shocking news and it reached the Sky Demon Cults’ leaders, they might send a divine-tier Sky Demon Cultists over by tomorrow morning.
Hence, he directly contacted Zhou Yu to give his report in secret instead. Even if the Sky Demon Cult knows that some elites had fallen at Lingzhou City, they would not act recklessly without knowing what’s going on.
Tapping his desk with his fingers and having an a.s.sistant cook him some instant noodle with added ham, Duan Tianhe slowly relaxed.
Zhou Yu had already declared his position.
Aside from Ji Dongxu who was guarding Lingzhou City in the open, another divine-tier champion had been arranged to come in secret specifically to protect Jiang He and the city as well.
“At least we don’t have to be afraid of Sky Demon Cult elites with a divine-tier elite watching.”
Duan Tianhe muttered, and could not help laughing at that.
The Sky Demon Cult?
They might have been founded at the start of the Revival of Qi and causing trouble across the globe over the last ten years, the various nations’ elites had less success culling them compared to Jiang He’s effort alone!
The difference was simply incredible!
“I wonder how the Sky Demon Cult would react after learning what happened?
***
Late at night, back at the entrance to Zhouchuan village.
The look on the black-robed Cardinal’s face slowly contorted after waiting for almost four hours.
Whipping out his phone, he dialed the respective numbers of the Sentinel of the Right, Senior Elder, the Fourth Elder, and the Flowing Cloud Holy Child...
None of them answered.
Something must have happened!
In that moment, no matter how the Cardinal of the Sky Demon Cult would not believe it, he would still have to admit one thing... something might have happened to them.
“What’s going on?”
“The Sentinel of the Right, Senior Elder, Fourth Elder, Flowing Cloud Holy Child, Six Decans and Six Heavenly Generals... is there any place in the world they could not strut, barring divine-tiers? Why would they be stopped in a measly town like Lingzhou city?”
“There aren’t any elites in that city, are there?”
To be fair, the Decans and the Heavenly Generals could die for all he cared, and even Fourth Elder was expendable.
On the other hand, every Holy Child was groomed at great cost of the Holy Faith.
Even as a fighting force, the youth who already reached rank-eight in his twenties was exceedingly powerful!
Most importantly, Senior Elder and the Sentinel of the Right were also amongst the casualties...
“The Sentinel of the Right is rank-nine with perfect grasp over the Boundary of Wills, and a step away from being permitted to enter the Holy Lake, converting to Holy Form and ascending to divine-tier. Even Senior Elder was not that far behind.”
The black-robed Cardinal was rather fearful.
They were elite forces of the Holy Faith, and the Saint might flip out once he learned anything happened to them, and blame the Cardinal for it.
Taking to the air, he headed towards Lingzhou City, killing intent sharply flowing from his body in his desire to uncover the truth. And yet, he did not move more than fifty miles when alarmed blared in his head, and he promptly withdrew all his aura to land and hide in a village beneath him.
Whoosh!
A blade’s flash was streaking forward from the horizon of the night sky.
Still, the flash was not actually from a blade!
The blade will which extends from the person flying up in the skies was so strong that it prompted such an illusion.
And that person was a middle-aged man with inch-long hair.
Despite being just one point seven meters tall, he gave others the impression of being very brawny. And right now, his eyes were scanning the ground beneath him with a frown, and he suddenly waved his hand, materializing a combat blade on his palm and swung it downwards.
Slash!
A gigantic air slash landed, and with a loud rumble, the village below was cut in two. Untold number of houses were split apart by the slash as Blade Qi billowed, causing more buildings to collapse.
The middle-aged man landed, flinging his sleeve to knock off the dust kicked up from the collapse.
He searched through the ruined village, and eventually paused in front of a pile of blood.
After staring at it for seconds, the middle-aged man eventually laughed, “With me standing guard over Lingzhou from this day forth, any shady elements who dare make trouble here shall be cut down where they stand!”
With that, he took to the air again and disappeared into the night.
It was a long time after the man left that the black-robed cardinal climbed out from beneath the ground under the ruined village. His black-robes had been cut to pieces by Blade Qi and he looked utterly stunned, a faint glimmer showing in his eyes as he said hoa.r.s.ely, “Three Blades Lin...”
“Wasn’t he supposed to stand guard over Mount Kunlun? Why did he come here to Lingzhou City?”
The Cardinal hence stared at the direction where Three Blades Lin disappeared, a wary look showing in his eyes before he turned around, giving up on heading for Lingzhou City.
***
Jiang He was not aware of all that.
It was two in the morning, but he was not asleep.
Having just had a bath, he had changed into his silk pajamas and was lying down on his soft Simmons bed while surfing the Internet on his notebook.
After browsing through the Warrior Home forums for a while, Jiang He wore a post about wanting to buy immortal arts.
On another note, the forum had completed public testing and was now officially online.
Now, martial artists and Awakened who cleared the MAD a.s.sessments could use their personal information or ‘Warrior ID’ to register, which was why the number of posts and users shot up instantly.
In fact, someone counted that there were now five hundred thousand registered Warrior Home accounts, and after adding in some unregistered martial artists and Awakened, there may well be more than seven hundred thousand warriors in the Hua Nation.
That might sound many, but when compared to the Hua Nation’s one billion population, the ratio was 2000:1, not to mention that lower-tier martial artists and Awakened occupy a major part of that number.”
“But now that martial arts are becoming widespread and even the education departments are implementing strong reforms, a nine-year compulsory martial arts education might come to be. As time pa.s.sed, martial artists would certainly increase considerably.”
Closing his computer, Jiang He mused to himself, “And if the Murong clan has a torn immortal art script, the other martial clans would definitely have it too... in fact, there might even be some in the possession common folk. Perhaps I should log in again or put up a news flash or something...”
Big fishes would only be caught by large nets after all.
Nonetheless, Jiang He was most looking forward to the Five Sacred Grounds of Martial Arts.
Each held an extensive history and was more than meets the eye, and it was very likely they possess immortal arts.
That left Jiang He a little impatient about visiting the Sacred Grounds.
“The Secret Realm of Tantra would be opened on the seventh of October... we have to get there by the sixth, don’t we?
“It’s already the second... no, wait, it’s morning now, so it’s the third.”
Three more days until his theory was proven.
He was a little excited just thinking about it.
“I’ll work hard on my farming starting tomorrow, and try my best to improve my ability up to five times before heading to Tantra. I’ll at least feel more confident talking to their elites then.”
On another note, the drowsiness he felt just now... was already gone?
“I did not sleep well last night, and yet I’m still not drowsy at all today.”
Jiang He was rather surprised.
He remembered that it had been written in novels that sleep becomes inconsequential with the improvement of one’s power, and many were fine with not sleeping for years...
It was so unsettling!
Jiang He felt a little scared then.
Is the price of becoming strong a serious lack of quality sleep?
Ouch!
“Whatever, I’m not sleeping then. Tomorrow I’ll make a divine sleeping art or dream sutra to help with falling asleep, or plant some sleeping pills to ensure quality sleep.”
Tossing around, Jiang He rose from the bed.
He wouldn’t bother with sleep since he could not fall asleep anyway.
With a wave of his hand, he brought out two tufts of Sword Will Barrenwort.
He had four tufts at the moment, one of which he used back at Jiangnan, consuming much of the sword will it contained. Moreover, there was one other tuft that grew out of Sixth Elder’s grave.
“This one which has halved sword will is an inferior seed if planted... might as well use it for cultivation.”
“As for the grave gra.s.s that grew out of Sixth Elder... plants planted in the farm can’t be replanted anyway. The night is long and since I’m not drowsy at all, I’ll use them to cultivate sword will and to pa.s.s the time.”
Oom!
His spirit extended, shrouding the single tuft of Sword Will Barrenwort.
In that instant, Jiang He could feel the pure sword will contained within the Sword Will Barrenwort.
The sword will clashed endlessly against his own consciousness, refining his sword will... Jiang He could feel his grasp over sword will becoming more thorough and sharper, and his spirit was growing slowly under the refinement too.
Snikt!
Jiang He’s word will turned into a small sword then, whereas the sword will within the Sword Will Barrenwort were crumbled, the plant itself withering—a sign that the sword will within was empty.
Opening his eyes, Jiang He extended his senses.
“If the Boundary of Wills is measured in percentage, my grasp over Thunder Will is around thirty, and as for Sword Will...”
“Maybe twenty.
“Not bad, not bad, let’s keep this going!”
After some time.
Snikt!
The second tuft of Sword Will Barrenwort was torn apart.
Jiang He frowned, muttering, “My grasp over Sword Will is around thirty percentage...”
“The first tuft helped me grasp sword will and master it around twenty percent, but the next one only added ten percent to it... such a huge diminishment of effect!”
Jiang He felt rather helpless.
Such was cultivation—the further you go, the more difficult it would be.
He sacrificed a night of sleep only for an insignificant amount of improvement in sword will...
“Sigh... life is hard.”