Chapter 1267: Grand Ancestor’s Taboo
The fortress outpost that the Law Realm had established in the Alpha Universe…
Xia Fei arranged for the Xiu Family people to stay at their base. Now that the Evil Spirit in Xiu Yiyi’s brain had been exorcized, the next thing would be to slowly help mend her brain region. Xiu Qian’s request was not too demanding, and he had no wish for her to become some powerful genius. All he wanted was for her to survive.
Thus, Xia Fei let Xiu Yiyi rest and recover for several days, and even handed a detailed list to Xiu Qian, stipulating what food she could eat and what to avoid.
Xia Fei had starved Xiu Yiyi for several days on the s.h.i.+p, only allowing her to eat carrots and other vegetables, all for the sake of controlling that Evil Spirit. His goal was to prevent it from continuing to grow more powerful, so now of course there were no such restrictions in place. Knowing that the Xiu Family was affluent, there was no lack of treasured ingredients on that list.
Xiu Qian simply glanced at the list and sent his underlings to get it filled. He did not even blink once, a level of lavishness that surprised Xia Fei greatly.
——
After getting the Xiu Family settled, the Skywing Wolfpack had a meeting. For the sake of confidentiality, there were only four people who attended: Grand Ancestor Xia Gucheng, Chief Executive Xia Ke, as well as Xia Fei and Xia Guanghai.
“The Soul Array this time was a resounding success. In the future, we can use it as our main battle tactic. It’s just too bad that we are a little low on numbers, preventing us from using even more powerful Soul Arrays, seeing as the more powerful Arrays will require even more cores,” Xia Fei mused while lighting a cigarette.
…..
Xia Ke was helpless as well, “We Skywings had never attained victory through numerical advantage. Do you think it’s possible to include the Law Sages and higher cultivation warriors of our clans? If so, then we would at least be able to gather upwards of three to five hundred men.”
Xia Fei shook his head, “That won’t do. Soul Arrays require stability, and joining the Soul Array without enough strength would instead create a flaw in the Array. A Law G.o.d is already the baseline.”
Everyone was silent for a good while. The Skywing Clan had improved rapidly and had over twenty Founders now, as well as more than forty Law G.o.ds. But these numbers were still very far from Xia Fei’s desires when you consider a super Soul Array like the Spirit Mountain Array needing two hundred and fifty-six cores!
“Then how about we get warriors from other clans to join in?” Xia Guanghai suggested.
“Definitely not!” Xia Fei was resolute. “This Soul Array will be Skywing’s hidden trump card, how could we let outsiders learn it? Besides, the Soul Array is powerful because of its motion, and how many speedsters do other clans besides ours have?”
Xia Guanghai gave it some thought and saw the sense in those words. First, Xia Fei was not someone that could easily trust others, and even if he trusted Oro, Oro lacked the means to attain the speed requirement. Including him would be useless, as the changing of the Array still depended on the Skywings’ own strength.
Xia Fei gave the matter some thought and proposed, “Inform the others. Special training begins tomorrow. Let’s take advantage of this time we have so everyone could familiarize themselves with the Soul Array as quickly as possible.”
Xia Gucheng sighed, “A pity that as powerful as the Soul Array is, there’s no way we can execute it without you. After all, you’re the only Spiritualist in our clan, and we have no way to activate it without you being around.”
Xia Guanghai and Xia Geng were also a little worried. After they had fought their way into the Alpha Universe, the Skywings had begun to rely on Xia Fei more and more. They needed Xia Fei to gain more soul weapons, and it was the same for this Soul Array. Even the materials the Law Realm needed had been obtained via the Heavenly Treasure Firm through Xia Fei.
Xia Fei chuckled, “There’s no need for you to worry so much. This time, I’ve not only brought the Soul Array, I’ve also brought some improvement to the Wolfpack Formation.”
“Improvements to the Wolfpack Formation?!” Everyone gasped. After all, the Wolfpack Formation was something the clan had used for many years. Not everyone felt certain after hearing Xia Fei suddenly suggest making improvements to it.
Xia Fei continued, “There once existed a race called the Fiends, who were known to be the greatest tacticians in all of history. This time, I was fortunate enough to fight against some remnants of the Fiends, and the tactical formations they used were very similar to the Wolfpack Formation. However, they could achieve an even greater lethality when they attacked, which is why I’m thinking about incorporating their set into our Wolfpack Formation! It should bring about a rather decent result.”
Changing the topic, Xia Fei asked Xia Gucheng with a smile, “Grand Ancestor, just where are you from? What relations.h.i.+p does the Law of Speed our clan use have to the Fiends? Even the Wolfpack Formation we use shares similarities with the formations from the Fiends. It won’t be good if we are treated as the remnants of the Fiends if we draw the attention of others in the future.”
Xia Gucheng was the one who had founded the Skywing Clan, but no one really knew his personal history. Xia Fei had long been very curious if the Law of Speed from his clan was actually a legacy from the Fiends, and now that he had learned about the similarities between the Wolfpack Formation and the Fiend tactical formations, Xia Fei could not help but deepen his suspicions, prodding him to ask such a question.
Unexpectedly, this line of question actually angered Xia Gucheng. Glaring at Xia Fei, he turned his head and made to leave, shouting as he did, “Yours truly was an orphan! This old man wanted to retire, but none of you will let me, and now you’re actually questioning your Grand Ancestor’s background?! What a bunch of vicious ingrates!”
*Slam*
The Grand Ancestor left in a huff, leaving Xia Ke and Xia Guanghai to respectively turn toward Xia Fei. XIa Guanghai sighed, “Some sealed pots are not meant to be opened; why have you asked about such a thing?”
Xia Ke also added, “That’s right. Our Grand Ancestor’s personal history has always been the only taboo topic for him. The old man has no desire to talk about his past, most likely because he had a tough time when he was younger. Besides, what has his heritage got to do with anything? All we need to know is that he is our Grand Ancestor, and that’s that.”
The Skywings had a tradition of never looking into the past of their members. When Xia Fei first returned to the clan, everyone had viewed him as one of their own, and when someone bullied him, the entire Skywing Clan went nuts, killing everywhere. None of them cared how he ended up straying, and no one asked about it, either. All that mattered was that he was one of them, and there was no need to look too deeply into matters.
Xia Fei shrugged, “Fine, I won’t ask about it anymore in the future. Oh right, how are those two custodian slaves from the Unrestricted Sect doing?”
Xia Guanghai replied, “Still the same as before. They are ignoring everyone, though our Grand Ancestor will often go visit them. He said their body techniques are extraordinary, which is strange. They are clearly living corpses, yet seem to be despondent. There was a time I saw several of our young clansmen accidentally barge into the Unrestricted Pavillion, and they didn’t even care, letting the rascals fool around there.”
Xia Fei sighed. If it was in the past, anyone who might have dared to barge into the Unrestricted Pavillion would find themselves dead by those custodian slaves’ hands. But now, it was as if the two had tendered in their resignations, not even doing their original jobs. They were all disheartened, unable to truly live life or be granted death. It was truly quite a depressing state to be in.
“Alright, I’ll go look at them when I return. If they are willing, they could really help us quite a bit, given how their bodies are st.u.r.dy like steel, truly tough,” Xia Fei nodded.
…
The Skywing Wolfpack secluded themselves to practice the soul array for three consecutive days.
The requirements for the users of the Soul Array were nothing complicated; they simply had to be able to be quick and accurate. With Xia Fei acting as the brain of the Soul Array, what he needed was the ability to adjust the men at any given time, which was the hardest part. Rather than saying it was the Skywings training to use the Soul Array, it would be more accurate to say it was Xia Fei getting used to his new role in the Wolfpack.
As for the plan to improve the Skywing Wolfpack Formation, Xia Fei had handed it over to experts of the clan like Xia Guanghai, Xia Xiang, Xia Ya, and Xia Helin to take charge of. Xia Fei was the Lone Wolf, and would be roaming away from the Formation. He had not learned the Wolfpack Formation either, so there was no way he could make any changes to something he had no knowledge of. All he could do was let those familiar with formations do the work, while giving them some pointers from the periphery.
After they were done with the training exercises, the Skywing Wolfpack would continue to study and make improvements to their formation, while Xia Fei took the time to take a look at the two Custodian slaves.
In the distance, he saw the other Chief Executive of the Skywing Clan, Xia Lianning, bringing Xiu Qian’s pale-faced bodyguard to find him. Xia Fei asked why, and learned that Xiu Qian was beginning to get anxious again. He wanted Xia Fei to help Xiu Yiyi mend her seventh brain region.
“The young missus’s body had recovered quickly after eating some Bako Seeds, and is now able to move about by herself now. It is just that she’s sleeping longer every day, almost as if she had yet to make a full recovery from her lethargy,” the bodyguard informed him.
Xia Fei was stunned, “Did you say Bako Seeds? The seeds one can find only on the highest canopy of the Sunko Skytree?”
“That’s correct.”
“Your Xiu Family sure is liberal with your funds. How many Sunko Skytrees are there? And one would still need to retrieve the smallest seeds found on the highest canopy. So many people could not even buy a single seed without spending mountains of gold, yet you’ve actually treated them as food for Xiu Yiyi to eat,” Xia Fei lampooned.
“Master already said that the cost does not matter as long as the young missus could recover.”
Xia Fei nodded. He did not scoff at this pale-faced bodyguard from the Xiu Family, seeing as the man did things with finesse and was also an expert. Xia Fei also had the intention of trying to get close with him after seeing just how mysterious this White Qilin Clan was. There were hardly any drawbacks of Xia Fei’s part to gain a better understanding of their familial matters.
With that thought, Xia Fei flashed his signature genial smile and squeezed that bodyguard’s shoulder warmly, “Speaking of which, we’re hitting off quite nicely, you and I. Just how should I address you?”
“This…” That bodyguard was not used to this particular earthling custom that Xia Fei was displaying right now, so he answered with knitted eyebrows, “You may call me Xiu Fengnian.”
“I’m the younger one, so I shall call you big brother Fengnian. I just so happen to be going to visit some old friends. Why don’t you join me and we can head to Xiu Yiyi’s after we’re done,” Xia Fei offered, all friendly-like.
Xiu Fengnian suddenly felt a little creeped out. After all, Xia Fei was acting very differently from when he was being impulsively aggressive before, and Xiu Fengnian could not figure out which was the real Xia Fei.
Before he could even answer, Xia Fei dragged Xiu Fengnian with him to Spirit Mountain. They chatted quite a lot along the way, though Xia Fei did not ask about anything pertaining to the Xiu Family.
This was a technique, just like when trying to buy something. The more you desire to purchase something, the better it would be if you do not reveal your intention to others. Otherwise, people could seize the opportunity and raise their prices, or they might catch on that you have ulterior motives.
Xia Fei bringing Xiu Fengnian over to meet the custodian slaves was also a gesture of sincerity. The custodian slaves could be considered as a secret of the Skywing Clan, and should not be something outsiders should know. However, Xia Fei did not agree with this sentiment, and had brought Xiu Fengnian to see this secret so as to move him, making it easier for them to build trust and the like in the future.
Besides, Xia Fei had plenty of secrets, and revealing these two custodian slaves was nothing.
The tens of kilometers high Spirit Mountain had not been moved entirely, but what he had brought over was the peak of the mountain, only about five hundred meters tall. Despite so, this mountain was still by no means small, and it gave off an atmosphere of vicissitude and spirit energy.
Xiu Fengnian was an Annhiliator-tier expert, and he could feel the difference the moment he stepped on Spirit Mountain. Though some of the buildings on the mountain had been ruined, he could tell that it was ancient. Furthermore, the road to the Unrestricted Pavilion was even more winding and full of mysteries.
The doors to the Unrestricted Pavilion were wide open. Its insides were no longer a secret, and it was left open in order to make it easier for the Skywing Wolfpack to find the custodian slaves.
Upon entering the premises, anyone could tell through the crystal windows that the past sectmasters of the Unrestricteds could very easily snoop in on any clandestine meeting being held. Xiu Fengnian was secretly shocked, realizing that this place was anything but simple.
“This was once the Spirit Mountain that the Unrestricted Spiritualists used as a base. Later, when the Unrestricted Sect was no more, I moved this mountain peak here, as a keepsake,” Xia Fei nonchalantly informed the bodyguard.
The Unrestricteds?! A keepsake?!
Xiu Fengnian was startled but he soon lowered his head thoughtfully and followed closely behind Xia Fei.