Volume 1, Chapter 127 – Trouble

As the Enlightening Jade Dew slid down her throat, a gentle warmth rose within her, like a fine spring rain, soothing Shi Lan’s scorched organs. A strand of clear qi climbed along her spine and surged into her mind.

Shi Lan felt a coolness sweep through her head, followed by an unprecedented sense of clarity. The feeling of her spirit being uplifted made her close her eyes, wanting to savor it carefully.

Each halberd move of the Heaven-Scorching Three Halberds flashed rapidly through her mind. Some parts that had been obscure in the past now flowed together like water.

Shi Lan was not sure what rank the Heaven-Scorching Three Halberds would fall under by the standards of the Lingyang Realm, but its level was certainly not low.

Just in the first move, Mortals Perish, twelve different variations were hidden. She had only comprehended two so far, combining force and concealing force, and the power was already considerable.

The halberd was a very complex weapon, almost combining the traits of three or four kinds of weapons: spear, lance, war halberd, and even saber and sword.

Across all three moves, the Heaven-Scorching Three Halberds contained thirty-six variations, most of them methods for manipulating force and true qi. Some of those variations could be applied to other weapons without issue.

With the aid of the Enlightening Jade Dew, Shi Lan comprehended a third variation in less than half an hour: entangling force.

Just as she was about to press on and comprehend a fourth variation in one go, the clear qi in her mind gradually dissipated.

Without the slightest hesitation, Shi Lan raised her hand and poured the remaining Enlightening Jade Dew into her mouth. A current of clear qi, more than twice as dense as before, surged into her sea of consciousness.

The feeling of seeing through this profound, obscure halberd art as if it were laid bare before her eyes had Shi Lan completely absorbed.

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Focused on comprehending the halberd technique, Shi Lan did not notice that the true qi in her body was also being nourished by the Enlightening Jade Dew, steadily rising like water in a swelling tide.

By the time the last trace of Enlightening Jade Dew was spent, Shi Lan had already grasped the fourth variation, exploding force, and the fifth variation, shocking force. They interwove with the earlier changes, and she made great strides along the path of halberd arts.

Shi Lan slowly opened her eyes and felt as if a mountain was pressing on her body. Her chest felt somewhat stifled. When she probed her cultivation, she was startled to discover that she had somehow stepped into the peak of the eighth stage of the Innate Realm, with the barrier to the ninth stage right before her.

After adjusting her true qi, Shi Lan stood up, holding the jade bottle as she walked to the edge of the blood pool. She tested it by dipping the bottle into the blood.

A wisp of green smoke rose. The jade bottle dissolved rapidly upon touching the blood, and in an instant only half of it was left.

Shi Lan was not surprised. If Huang blood could be collected casually, there was no way it would have survived to this day.

After roughly estimating the time, Shi Lan silently asked, “Samsara, is there any way to take some Huang blood with me? Can I put it straight into the Qiankun Bracelet?”

She could not stay here for long, and refining Huang blood took time. She could at most refine it once more before she had to leave.

“Huang blood cannot be placed directly into your Qiankun Bracelet. The material of this Void Crystal is not enough to bear it. You must melt spirit crystals into containers to hold it. Mid-grade or lower spirit crystals will not do. They must be high-grade spirit crystals.”

Shi Lan’s teeth ached as she listened. Using high-grade spirit crystals just to make containers was absurdly extravagant. Before the martial meet, she would not even have dared to think of it.

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After pondering for a while, Shi Lan left the stone chamber.

Outside, the sun hung high. It was nearly noon, and the sunlight was harsh.

Wu Lingkong was leaning sideways against the doorframe, her expression a bit grim. When she saw Shi Lan come out, she said, “We’ve got trouble…”

Shi Lan’s expression froze slightly. Listening as Wu Lingkong slowly explained, she learned that in just one night, five Heavenly Astral Realm experts had arrived in Ancient Phoenix City, and the number of Earth Fiend Realm martial artists had long since surpassed twenty.

When the Heavenly Astral Realm martial artists entered the city, they made no effort to hide their presence and went straight to pay a visit to the City Lord’s Manor.

Because of the Sky Thunder Hall’s warning, the five had been polite on the surface, but in truth they had still tried to use their status to press down, probing and pressing Gu Rentong from every angle to find out what exactly Shi Lan had taken from the Sky Thunder Hall’s treasure vault.

Gu Rentong genuinely did not know what Shi Lan had chosen, so he had naturally answered in vague terms.

Heavenly Astral Realm martial artists were not so easily fobbed off.

When the five were about to search the manor by force, it was Wu Lingkong who stepped out and revealed her identity as a member of the Demon-Suppressing Army, which finally startled them into withdrawing. After that previous ambush, Wu Lingkong had gained a very deep understanding of how ignorant some people in the Chengtian Domain were. She truly had no confidence in how many people the name of the Demon-Suppressing Army could actually deter.

With both the Sky Thunder Hall and the Demon-Suppressing Army as shields, anyone with a working brain would not come at them head-on. They would definitely resort to underhanded tactics.

What Wu Lingkong was worried about were those despicable tricks.

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Shi Lan frowned slightly, already turning over in her mind how to avoid the trouble that might be coming.

……

To the west of Ancient Phoenix City, less than three li from the City Lord’s Manor, several figures sat around a table on the top floor of a restaurant.

These were the five Heavenly Astral Realm experts who had left the City Lord’s Manor not long ago.

All five looked fairly young. The oldest among them was only a bit over forty, a saberman dressed in green.

Of the remaining four, only one was a woman. She looked to be about thirty, a charming beauty in a light blue thin dress, every glance and movement full of allure.

The other three were all around the same age, just past thirty. One of them was extremely burly; his forearms were almost as thick as an adult’s thigh. His face was covered in heavy flesh, his hair was cropped short, and he wore a black short outfit.

Next to this hulk sat a man of medium build in tight martial clothes, casually playing with a willow-leaf saber in his hand.

The last man wore Daoist robes, his hair tied up in a Daoist’s topknot. He was clearly a Daoist priest.

After the five had looked at each other for a while, the woman finally broke the silence.

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“That Shi Lan is from the Demon-Suppressing Army. We might only be able to watch this time. Better we go back early.”

“Not necessarily.” The burly man shook his head slightly, his expression almost inscrutable. “Going back empty-handed would be far too much of a waste.”

“Are you insane? You want to make a move on the Demon-Suppressing Army? Since the Demon-Suppressing Army was founded, you won’t find a single person in the entire Chengtian Domain who shed their blood and is still alive!” The woman was taken aback, covering her mouth in shock.

“You have a way to hide from the supervision of the Human Race Annals?” The green-robed saberman’s gaze sharpened, fixing on the burly man.

The reason the Demon-Suppressing Army’s deterrent power was so immense was that if you laid a hand on them and wanted to avoid settling accounts later, the first thing you had to do was slip past the scrutiny of the Human Race Annals.

“You give me too much credit. Even the Human Emperor cannot do that. How could I? If I had that ability, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” the burly man said with a small shake of his head.

“Then what do you mean?”

“I think I roughly understand what Brother Canglong is getting at,” the Daoist said.

Before the burly man could speak, the Daoist took over, smiling faintly. “All we want is the thing in her hands, not Shi Lan’s life.”