Volume 1, Chapter 182 – The Layout

Although Shi Lan had already guessed that the surge in reputation might be because of the blood bead, when she sensed the hundreds of thousands of auras inside it, she was still shocked by the sheer number.

In just a few short days, she suddenly had hundreds of thousands of demon beasts under her command?

Only after carefully sensing the blood bead again did Shi Lan notice that the special power hidden within the green lotus totem on the outside of her right forearm had also increased several dozen times over, nearly a hundredfold.

After a round of testing, Shi Lan discovered that if she drew this power into her body, she could raise her cultivation by one to two minor realms, with no side effects at all.

At first, Shi Lan was surprised by how terrifying this totem power of the demon race was. But then she thought about it. There were hundreds of thousands of beasts in the herd; there was no way someone in the Earth Fiend Realm alone could command them. To those great demons, this kind of amplification probably wasn’t all that frightening.

Her skyrocketing reputation value only began to slow down once it surpassed one hundred fifty thousand, though the upward trend was still very pleasing.

As for the lottery chances from the mission rewards, aside from the intermediate lottery chance, Shi Lan used up all ten basic lottery chances.

Out of those ten chances, she drew two three-star items.

One was a bottle of True Power Pills suitable for Earth Fiend Realm martial artists to take, and the other was a bottle of A-grade evolution serum.

Aside from these two, the rest were items suitable for martial artists in the Innate Realm and Body Tempering Realm: there were magic tools and pills, but for the current Shi Lan, they were basically useless.

That bottle of evolution serum greatly piqued Shi Lan’s interest, because this was her first time drawing an item from a technological world.

According to the system’s introduction, this evolution serum could stimulate part of a human’s potential, and its side effects were extremely mild, something Shi Lan’s physique could completely negate.

The serum was stored in an alloy briefcase with an electronic combination lock. The lock had already failed and was easily opened by Shi Lan.

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Inside the case lay a metal syringe and a glass bottle about a palm tall, half-filled with pale blue liquid.

In addition, there was a manual describing how to use the evolution serum and explaining some of the possible reactions after injection.

Developing human potential naturally meant pain was unavoidable. According to the manual, it would cause pain roughly equivalent to level seventeen on the pain scale.

Shi Lan had no concept of how pain was graded, but it should be very painful, that much was clear.

The method of using the evolution serum was quite simple: load it into the syringe and inject it directly into the muscle.

Shi Lan filled the syringe with the serum, but when she was about to inject it, she ran into a problem.

The needle of the syringe couldn’t pierce her skin at all.

After snapping three of the spare needles in the case in a row, Shi Lan gave up on injecting it that way. She took out the Golden Rainbow Star-Chasing Sword, drew a cut on her shoulder, then removed the needle and injected the serum directly into her body.

As the serum entered her body, Shi Lan felt a slight heat spread through her. She calmed her mind and prepared to endure the incoming pain, but after her blood and qi circulated twice, her body returned to normal.

That was… it?

Shi Lan opened her eyes, her brows knitting slightly. She was a little disappointed; she hadn’t felt any obvious change in her body.

For an evolution serum that counted as a three-star item, its effects were really quite underwhelming.

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Shi Lan did not dwell on it further. She took out the bottle of True Power Pills, poured one out, swallowed it, and began cultivating.

…

As promised, Cangyue returned two days later, bringing the exact number of Earth Fiend Realm demon beasts that had been agreed upon, not one more or less, precisely enough to make up the quota.

The other two demon kings came along as well.

“Clan leader, it isn’t that your subordinate is unwilling to catch more. It’s just that there really are no demon beasts left to find. I beg your understanding.”

Cangyue was a bit helpless. He had wanted to catch more demon beasts for Shi Lan to curry favor, but the nearby Earth Fiend Realm demon beasts had already been almost completely captured. Between the Innate Realm demon beasts and the Heavenly Astral Realm demon beasts, a near gap was forming.

“It’s fine.”

Shi Lan did not fuss over it. Once she killed off this batch of demon beasts and cultivated for a bit longer, she would return to the Vast Land of Shenzhou, where Earth Fiend Realm demon beasts would be plentiful.

“Clan leader, most of the demon beasts under our command have already been taken into the clan. Do you think we should gather them in one place?” Cangyue offered a suggestion.

“If we gather them all in one place, we’ll have to find a new, larger base.”

Off to the side, Yuan Ning added a comment, and Yu Yang also nodded. After all, they were talking about combining the subordinates of three demon kings.

Within the Feather Emperor Hall’s sphere of influence, that would count as a rather large force.

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Shi Lan couldn’t help feeling a bit of a headache. This was a troublesome matter.

They weren’t talking about ten or twenty thousand demon beasts, but hundreds of thousands, covering the mountains and plains. She had no idea how many valleys and forests it would take to pack them all in.

“If the clan leader hasn’t chosen a place yet, your subordinate does know of a possible site.” After pondering for a while, Cangyue’s eyes lit up and he spoke.

“Where?”

“I must ask the clan leader to come with me.”

Cangyue raised his hand and opened a passage in the air, then stepped aside to clear the way for Shi Lan.

Shi Lan took the lead, stepping into it first. With the three demon kings in tow, she crossed through space and arrived above a vast mountain range.

“Within a radius of a hundred thousand li around this mountain range, there are no traces of beasts, no birds flying past, and no heavenly materials or earthly treasures at all. The Feather Emperor Hall once派 people to investigate this place but never found anything unusual, so it has been left empty ever since.”

After explaining the situation, Cangyue said, “For us, this place is an excellent location.”

It wasn’t easy to find a territory this wide. Even though there were no heavenly materials or earthly treasures here, the spiritual qi in the air was no different from other places. Assigning part of the demon beasts here was completely feasible.

Looking down at the mountains beneath her feet, Shi Lan frowned slightly. There was something off about the geomantic layout here.

Heaven’s Eye Qi-Sight contained many minor techniques within it, and geomancy and feng shui were just one branch. As she used Heaven’s Eye more often, Shi Lan could sense that something was wrong with this place’s layout even without activating Heaven’s Eye.

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“Clan leader, is something amiss?” Seeing that Shi Lan stood still for a long time, Cangyue asked in confusion.

“Wait here.”

With that, Shi Lan shot into the sky, soaring several thousand meters up. Only when the astral wind became difficult for her to endure did she stop.

Hovering in midair, Shi Lan activated Heaven’s Eye and swept her gaze over the land.

Countless mountain ranges wound and coiled, stretching off into the distance like one true dragon after another, lying prone across the earth, covering an area of several thousand li. Several great rivers cut across between them.

These are… dragon veins?!

Shi Lan was slightly startled and examined them closely.

There were not too many nor too few mountain ranges—exactly ninety-nine. Mountains embracing and rivers encircling, with the dragon heads facing outward, they had almost drawn away all the earthly spiritual qi within a hundred thousand li.

With the earth’s spiritual qi drained away, all things had no root. No spirit demons could be born, only ordinary plants and trees.

No wonder beasts and birds were unwilling to stay, and heavenly materials and earthly treasures could not grow.

The directions of these hundred-odd dragon veins were extremely strange. Of the earthly spiritual qi siphoned from within a hundred thousand li, Shi Lan could not find even the slightest trace of where it went. It was bizarre to the extreme.