There were little islands drifting about outside of the floating void continent. To be precise, they were nothing more than large rocks. Possessing no barrier of their own, all they could do was suffer the constant erosion of the void elements.
Such drifting islands were abundant between continents, but only the largest ones with protective barriers held any value, as they were the only places where ordinary people could survive. Such land ma.s.ses could be counted on one hand, while the remainder were just worthless boulders.
These islands did not follow a specific orbit, and the environment around them was extremely adverse. Even divine champions would be hard-pressed to stay very long on them. Additionally, their movements posed a threat to airs.h.i.+ps, not unlike hidden reefs in the void.
A drifting island was slowly moving above the floating continent. It was no more than a few hundred meters in diameter and naturally possessed no protective barrier. But anyone standing atop it would be afforded a complete view of the entire continent below.
At this moment, there were two people playing chess in this almost forbidden place.
There was a table between them with a red clay teapot on it, heated by a floating plume of fire beneath it. There was a chessboard on the other side of the table, decorated with an array of black and white, and suffused with utter silence as the battle reached its peak.
On one side of the table was a stern-looking Prince Greensun. On the other end was a kind old man whose every movement was in line with the dao of the world—he was the number one expert of the empire, the Pointer Monarch.
The latter’s expression was indifferent as he waited for Zhang Boqian to play his piece. Prince Greensun, on the other hand, was thinking hard with his brows furrowed. He made no effort to hide the bad situation he was in and simply wore his heart on his sleeve.
The Pointer Monarch finished a cup of tea in one go, sighing. “What wonderful tea!”
The Pointer Monarch wasn’t quite satisfied with one cup. He reached out to the cup in front of Zhang Boqian, saying, “Boqian, you’re proficient in void traversal, so you have many opportunities to obtain such tea leaves. I’m old now and incomparable to you all, I can’t take that much stress. Why not just let me have this?”
Zhang Boqian’s eyes were still on the chessboard, and he didn’t move his body, either. Only a single black piece shot toward the Pointer Monarch’s hand, forcing him to shrink back. The piece looked like it would smash into the teacup, but it actually spun about and flew back into Zhang Boqian’s hand. The profundity of control in this move was truly difficult to describe.
This wasn’t a contest between ordinary cultivators. Even though the Pointer Monarch wasn’t going all out, how many people could contend with him and still have the energy to spare?
Losing half a move didn’t make the Pointer Monarch angry. He merely uttered the words “stingy” before continuing to admire the scenery of the floating continent with a smile. “You’ll lose that cup of tea to me, anyway.”
“Even so, you will wait until the game’s over.” Zhang Boqian’s voice was devoid of fluctuation.
An airs.h.i.+p flickered into view at this moment, flying straight toward the floating island at great speed.
Zhang Boqian remained deep in thought, almost as though he had never seen this airs.h.i.+p. The Pointer Monarch ignored the vessel and turned his attention to controlling the fire.
The airs.h.i.+p stopped beside the floating island and from it appeared several silhouettes. A tall, middle-aged man among them bore some resemblance to the Pointer Monarch. He stopped the others with a wave of his hand and stepped forward, bowing. “Grandpa.”
The Pointer Monarch looked up and said indifferently, “How many times have I told you to call me prince or my name. Aristocrats like you are so awesome, this old man is no match.”
The middle-aged man looked fairly awkward. He looked as though he wanted to say something but didn’t dare to. In the end, he muddled over the naming issue and said, “Tianqing sent word. This is an important matter, so I need you to look over it.”
Hearing Tianqing’s name wiped away the shadow on the old man’s face. “Bring it here.”
The middle-aged man pa.s.sed a letter to him and then went back to his position.
The Pointer Monarch raised his brows as he opened the letter and browsed through its contents. He then pa.s.sed the letter to Zhang Boqian, saying, “Now this is surprising, what do you think?”
Zhang Boqian’s attention suddenly snapped back from the chessboard. He looked through the letter and said with a pensive frown, “If it is as this letter says, the Great Vortex pa.s.sage in the neutral lands will be less hostile and life-threatening. If we can open up this pa.s.sage, the empire won’t need to limit itself to the quotas. This achievement will last a thousand years.”
The Pointer Monarch sighed while shaking his head. “I’ve been to the neutral lands when I was young, and I know very well of its dangers. This pa.s.sage has always been there, and it’s more than just hostile. Perhaps only you and I might be able to get through it. Even if it’s gentler now, it’s still not a journey those kids can make. Unless…”
At this point, the Pointer Monarch stopped speaking and only sighed.
Everyone knew the Pointer Monarch had troubles he couldn’t mention, and no one was ignorant enough to force this issue.
After a long while of silence, the Pointer Monarch said, “Boqian, you’re the commander of the army. How will you decide?”
Zhang Boqian replied indifferently, “That was in the past. Since it’s so hard to decide, why don’t we just wait and see? It won’t be too late to decide later.
With that, he played a black piece. This piece was isolated and seemingly idle, but it resonated faintly with the overall situation.
The Pointer Monarch praised, “Good piece!”
He then waved his hand at the middle-aged man, “I know about this matter, you guys can go back.”
The middle-aged man seemed like he wanted to say something but walked away hesitantly.
After the airs.h.i.+p had left, the Pointer Monarch said, “Speaking of the neutral lands, there’s something related to you, why not take a look?”
There was suddenly another sealed tube in the monarch’s hand, one of the three Song Zining had transmitted back to the empire.
Only one out of three tubes had reached the empire back then. The recipient didn’t suspect anything since this method wasn’t entirely stable, to begin with. It was already quite good that one of them had reached its intended target. Who would’ve thought the Pointer Monarch had used a powerful ability to intercept one of the two missing tubes?
Unexpectedly, Zhang Boqian flipped his left hand to reveal an identical tube.
The Pointer Monarch laughed while stroking his beard. “As expected of Prince Greensun, you’re catching up to your ancestors.”
Zhang Boqian shook his head. “The ancestor stands at the peak of martial prowess, how can I ever catch up?”
The Pointer Monarch didn’t argue with him, either. He merely pointed at the tube and asked, “How are you going to deal with this?”
Zhang Boqian, with a wave of his hand, turned the unopened tubes into ash, their contents destined never to be seen.
The Pointer Monarch said, “That’s fine as well, none of those people can scheme against you anyway.”
“It’s not time to shed all pretenses just yet.” Zhang Boqian’s eyes shone with a cold glint. “But I won’t give them any opportunity, lest they think I’m afraid of those plotting against me in the dark.”
The Pointer Monarch nodded. “True, I think Xitang is the best person to handle the matter regarding the Great Maelstrom. What do you say?”
“Does he even have time?” Zhang Boqian’s words were tainted with sarcasm and hidden meanings.
The Pointer Monarch muttered, “There’s no one else. Zhao Jundu is still young and cannot shoulder this responsibility, much less Song Zining. Hmm, that little fellow seems to be getting bolder and bolder, he needs to be punished.”
Zhang Boqian replied coldly, “He’s no longer mine the day he left the main camp.”
“Then it’s settled.” The Pointer Monarch picked up three white pieces, stroked them gently, and threw them away. The chess pieces flew away into the void amidst lingering ripples.
At this moment, Song Zining was well-rested, washed, and in his top form.
He wasn’t in a rush to eat. Instead, he stood in front of his desk and spread out a box of jade divination tokens. Then, he placed his folding fan on the southwestern corner of the table—the direction where the empire was at the moment.
After ample preparation, he reached out to pick up the jade tokens, ready to divine the heavenly mystery. Song Zining had made several important arrangements these days, and all of them should have responded by now. Considering how important this matter was, he couldn’t help but want to take a peek at fate despite knowing how difficult and backlash-p.r.o.ne it was.
Using jade tokens wasn’t something everyone could do. The Li family’s divination arts were most suited to use jade, and their inherited Heaventheft Jade was praised as being comparable to heaven’s eye.
After a period of silent prayer and incantation, he felt that the time was nigh.
Having done countless divinations, he was already extremely familiar with this feeling. Although the process today was unbelievably smooth, Song Zining threw the tokens out by reflex.
The moment the divination tokens flew out, each of them resonated with a mysterious force within the void and became connected by an invisible thread.
However, several ripples appeared in the void at that split second. There was a boundless power within those ripples that snapped the folding fan Song Zining had placed in the southwest direction into four parts!
This fan served to suppress the void and act as a cornerstone of this divination, keeping the jade tokens from being drawn away by the mysterious power. Now that the fan had been broken, the jade tokens suddenly lost their anchor—they flew about chaotically and shattered from the unbearable power.
Song Zining remained dazed for a moment before falling onto his back, his face as pale as a sheet.
He woke up moments later, but his entire body was flaccid and powerless.
Suddenly remembering something, Song Zining shot to his feet and went to grab the folding fan. Unfortunately, the instrument had been completely destroyed with no hope of repairing it.
Song Zining gazed at the folding fan, his mind completely blank. This fan was extremely important to him, an irreplaceable treasure that had the same effect as the Li family’s Heaventheft Jade. At this moment, it had been utterly ruined by the mysterious ripples.
Song Zining was shocked when he tried to channel his divination powers. His once crystal clear vision was now shrouded by a layer of mist and fairly slow to sense the great dao of the void. He would not be able to perform any divination before this layer of mist had been ground away.