Chapter 243: Rolling Death
Heaven Branch is an extremely rare branch that could grow on any tree. It is however the reincarnation of a piece from the original Tree of Life.
It is hard to notice and find due to the fact that it"s impossible to identify it from a normal tree branch unless it has been cut off from it.
The Heaven Branch is a great catalyst in creating some of the most potent revitalizing pills and a core ingredient in making the Phoenix Rebirth Pill. A pill capable of resurrecting the dead and bringing life back to what had once lost it.
The difficulty of creating the pill is another subject but having this branch means that a lost life can be regained.
However, one must be careful of the side effects of such a heretic pill as giving life to what heaven had taken is nothing short of a direct confrontation with the heavenly law and is punishable by death upon success.
Many however have found means to circ.u.mvent the Heaven Punishment and it is the Receptariers duty to find ways around it as well.
"Hmmm seems interesting," I mumbled, though this won"t be any use to me right now, I"ll keep it and see if I can hopefully make use of it someday.
Now, for the second part.
I can"t leave this planet, and I have a d.a.m.n hard time thinking that we"ll ever win this war. Especially with the Fire Lord "s full-frontal a.s.sault at our doorsteps, and the difference between the cultivation levels of our and their forces.
So, for now, I"ll need to make a bunker to protect the few people I have in my city before I try and think up a plan on how to leave.
I went to the library of the Lord of Lords and began looking at means of creating more protective inscriptions.
I found a few good books that didn"t rely on the same inscription methods of Master Rain, not that they"re better, but because they"re different.
I don" want another reoccurrence of the same stuff that happened today to happen again, at worst I"ll make two-layer defensive formation a mix of both Master Rain"s technique and some of the best inscriber"s manuals I can get my hand on.
As I was reading through the books and manuals, I almost facepalmed when I realized that I could have done something so obvious and so stupidly simple to get my a.s.s out of this trouble.
I"m no G.o.d, I"m no savior, and I know d.a.m.n well that I"m not strong enough to turn the tides of an entire planet invasion alone. Especially since we"re brutally outnumbered and outcla.s.sed.
It might be shameful, and it might be not honorable in the eyes of many. But not in my eyes, because I know, that if I were to try and hope that some sort of miracle would happen to save me from this, then I"m basically doing nothing but dooming myself waiting for something like that.
So, I"ll have to save myself, and I have at my disposal all the tools and necessary means to do so.
In a corner of the ma.s.sive library was a very normal-looking shelf, and it had something that I didn"t consider using at first.
I pulled the first of the several manuals that were on the shelf and pulled it out.
"s.p.a.ce Travel, Dangers and Treasures in abundance, by Hw.a.n.g Yulan"
I began reading through the book.
It began by explaining s.p.a.ce, the travel routes, the ma.s.sive galactic societies, and the forces within it. And then began by explaining the importance of a s.p.a.ce Map.
s.p.a.ce maps seem to be routes that are used, the safest and fastest to get to different regions, they"re usually guarded and need cultivators to pay tax to go through them. But are the safest, however, there are other ways to get to different locations, the only problem is that the risk is too high as they often coincide with hunting grounds of s.p.a.ce creatures.
d.a.m.n.
I continued reading and began to gain a bigger understanding of the life that dwells in s.p.a.ce. And also all the trading companies and the routes they use to transport goods.
It took me a while before I gained a full grasp over the nature of s.p.a.ce, then once I finished the book, I took another and continued reading.
Apparently, s.p.a.ce travel can be very easy if one were to use spatial wind currents, something I never thought would exist in s.p.a.ce. And the tools to exploit and make use of these currents are spatial shuttles.
s.p.a.ce Shuttles are basically a means of transport in s.p.a.ce, it can be as big as a ma.s.sive s.h.i.+p that could host an entire city worth of cultivators, or as small as a magic carpet that can transport one cultivator.
The size of the s.p.a.ce Shuttle only matters if it were used to transport people and goods. As for the speed of this Shuttle, it can only be increased by having good quality materials.
And the best material to make a s.p.a.ce shuttle is apparently s.p.a.ce Stones. Something that I have a lot of from visiting the Laughing Slaughter"s PaG.o.da.
I was going to use that to cultivate the Star Technique, but since I no longer need to hide the fact that I"m cultivating poison due to the hidden Qi effect that comes from the Poison G.o.d"s Cultivation technique I still have a bunch of it.
I continued reading through the manuals and found even more elaborate manuals on how to create simple shuttles and even some that were more advanced.
However, I"m lacking in some materials.
Currently, I"m a Nascent Soul Cultivator, meaning that I could probably venture into the higher floors of the Laughing Slaughter"s PaG.o.da.
Which was impossible back then. I could perhaps find even more materials there or something I could use, I also need to find more of those Puppets since I melted all the ones I had to improve upon X, which I only have one arm of him that"s left.
I pulled the Laughing Slaughterer"s token and teleported to the cold region where his tower existed.
I immediately got to the seventh floor where I stopped last time. And waited for his rumbling voice to speak.
"Welcome again Challenger! I see you grew stronger! Are you willing to go even higher!"
"Yeah, yeah, next challenge," I spoke.
Immediately a staircase fell down guiding me to the upper floor.
I walked up the stairs and found another even smaller room waiting for me.
As it appears, this paG.o.da is made of nine levels and every level is slightly smaller but more dangerous than the one below it. This one however had only one single doorway in the middle that seemed to be leading to nowhere.
I went around the door inspecting it and found out that it can only be opened from one side.
And the only way to open it was written on the door"s front.
"Use Law."
As ambiguous as it seemed I believe that this door will probably give an appropriate challenge to the law presented to it.
Once I applied the Law that I was most proficient in, which was gravitational law, the doorway opened up revealing a ma.s.sive-sized room that had a couple of dozen ma.s.sive stone-made b.a.l.l.s.
The b.a.l.l.s were twice my height and probably weighed in the tens of tons of weight.
The b.a.l.l.s were sitting firmly at the edge of the round room. The door behind me closed and disappeared while the voice of the tower spoke.
"Gravitational Law. One of the prime laws of the universe, applied to everything in existence, it is due to it that everything has a preordained course and orbit. It determines the weight of matter in existence and is one of the most complicated yet simple laws. In this trial, you need to survive by applying the gravitational Law. Be prepared."
"Hmm, this trial seems strange, there is no goal in sight. What am I supposed to do though?" I wondered
And immediately, one of the b.a.l.l.s on the corner of the room began moving, it was very slow. It moved at an incredibly slow pace and began slowly increasing its speed, it wasn"t much to be worried about.
The soon another ball began moving, and then another.
A few seconds later, two b.a.l.l.s were in direct collision and they made contact, and their contact made my heart drop.
The contact of the two b.a.l.l.s was explosively loud and it made each of the b.a.l.l.s shoot away from each other like shooting bullets.
Not only that, one of the two b.a.l.l.s made contact with another and that one also shot away, and then it began, the most complicated none algorithmic random collision of shooting death that I"ve ever seen in my life. As every ball began knocking into another and the two-shot away faster, and faster.
The speed of the b.a.l.l.s continued increasing and every collision made them go on a completely different path.
This was so absurdly random that I didn"t understand the meaning behind the test at all.
One of the b.a.l.l.s seemed to be directly heading in my direction, so I dodged away only to find myself in the path of another one that was inches away from my face.
"f.u.c.k!" I cursed but by the grace of the lords, another ball managed to knock that one away from my face before I turned to a flesh and bone paste.
The b.a.l.l.s continued colliding as I looked all over unable to understand what the h.e.l.l was, I supposed to do.