Star Gate

Hong Yitang laughed and threw out a storage ring. He glanced at Yuan Shuo. “After so many years, Big Brother Yuan is still so straightforward, so direct, so…”

He almost said shameless, but it was clearly implied.

Yuan Shuo didn’t bother with a response. He stopped grumbling only after Hong Yitang relinquished the storage ring.

“Let’s not argue about this,” Li Hao chuckled. “I want to take an inventory of all of my gains. There is too much as I made off with the entire Xu treasury. There’s a lot of good things here and I can’t catalog it all myself. Please give me a hand.”

He fished out a long string of storage rings from his armor, raising wide-eyed looks and tsk’ing! The Xus had truly suffered greatly and Li Hao had gained so much! He’d robbed the Xus clean, killed Red Beard and other pirate Novas, killed Xu Xing, the Yellow General, and second steward, and the rest had killed Xu Qing together.

If Red Beard was counted among the Xu camp, they’d lost eight Novas during the memorial and another nine before that. A double-digit figure of Novas were dead in such a short amount of time! Their losses were too heavy to estimate.

Of course, this also obliquely confirmed that the overlord of the East had extremely deep foundations. There were so many powerhouses among the family—the Heaven and Earth Generals were still alive, as were some of their resident experts, as well as the old duke of the sixth cultivation level that’d just appeared…

If they had more powerhouses in the ruins and some Novas in the army, then the family remained a formidable faction yet. It took a family of such caliber to keep the east under control.

The group was at a loss for words when they saw Li Hao take out the long necklace. Each of them quickly grabbed a handful of rings to help with the inventory count. There were so many that the young man couldn’t handle it all himself.

Meanwhile, Li Hao ignored treasure that was the like of mysterious power stones and others. He focused on the good stuff from the second and third floors. There’d been more than twenty origin weapons on the second floor and three earth level origin weapons on the third floor, as well as the Goldensky Lotus. There was also a mysterious medallion and a fragment of another weapon, as well as a piece of mirror on the fourth floor. Such were the full contents of the treasury.

The young man sifted through the contents of Xu Xing’s storage ring. The man had two origin weapons and three drops of Water of Life! So the second master had some fortune to his name as well. How unfortunate for him that he’d died too quickly to make use of it.

The Yellow General had been worse off since he had just set foot into metamorphosis. He had a lot of mysterious power stones, but not that many treasures. There was only one drop of Water of Life that was carefully hoarded in his ring.

An expert raised by a noble family wasn’t as strong as those who developed in the wild. Whatever treasure they seized was first handed over to their liege. All the same, it was rare to see such a poor metamorphosis expert.

Lastly, Li Hao examined Red Beard and Xu Qing’s storage rings. Being the leader of the East Sea pirates, Red Beard would have plenty of treasure. Pirates always kept their belongings on them instead of hiding them somewhere. They were the only ones most worthy of trust.

……

Li Hao kept taking deep breaths as he tallied his gains. The others were soon finished as well, each astonished by the final count.

“There are about 950,000 mysterious power stones,” Yuan Shuo began. “Six origin weapons, one thousand sets of ancient armor, and a lot of energy rings, which makes for too many cubes to bother counting. There are also more than one hundred blood pearls, but they don’t look too strong at typically less than Solar.”

950,000 stones!

Hong Yitang and Light Sword sucked in sharp breaths. They’d never heard of such a number in their entire lives!

“And I have another 200,000 pieces of mysterious power stones…” Li Hao grinned widely from ear to ear.

“Hmm?” The others blinked. You were only counting a few storage rings, how do you have so many?

“Xu Qing didn’t have that many low quality ones and has a few big ones like Martial Uncle Hong. I didn’t count those. It was Red Beard who unexpectedly brought a ton with him.” The young man was utterly delighted. “I count a total of twenty-nine origin weapons and nine drops of Water of Life! What a pity that Xu Qing seemed to have used up all of his. Red Beard had a few drops too.”

These were commonly seen treasures. The less common ones, such as weapon fragments, medallions, or mirrors were also present. Red Beard seemed to possess a few similar weapons in his storage ring too.

“1.15 million mysterious power stones, thirty-five origin weapons, nine drops of Water of Life…” General shock rippled through the group.

“You were seriously ridiculously bold to raid the Steadfast Duke’s manor!” Yuan Shuo couldn’t help but exclaim. “A family like that with hundreds of years of history and being the eastern overlord… No wonder you made off with such riches. But you have to keep in mind that you wouldn’t have gotten away if not for reinforcement from large numbers of Silver Moon martial masters!”

“I wasn’t planning on raiding them,” Li Hao responded innocently. “I was only going for the other Windchaser Boot. That’s an heirloom of the eight families, it’s not like they can use it…”

The group couldn’t be bothered with him. You were ready to go toe-to-toe with the Xus when you decided to go for the Windchaser Boots, weren’t you? Otherwise, it was theirs for hundreds of years. Why would they just give it to you? In your dreams!

Li Hao now grasped three weapons of the eight families in his hands. If there was one in Battle Heaven, that meant Red Moon would have four at most. He’d originally thought that organization had all of the rest apart from his own sword and the blade in teacher’s hand. But now, the most they could possibly have was four.

The sword of the Lis, blade of the Zhangs, fists of the Zhaos, footwork of the Lius, big turtle kept by the Wangs, mallet of the Hongs, spear of the Zhou, and the trouble that is the Zheng young master…

He understood that there should be a spear, potentially boxing gloves, and a mallet left, but he had no idea what the Zhengs possessed. They were the most unique family in the folk song and the only one that there was a lack of clues for.

Red Moon might have the spear, boxing gloves, and mallet. Li Hao suddenly recalled that Director General Wang of Battle Heaven had said to go find him when the young man collected all eight weapons. The head of city security wanted to borrow them for a bit. Li Hao had three now, but he probably wouldn’t be obtaining the rest without killing Ying Hongyue first.

He put this matter out of his mind and chortled nonstop. “I’m really rich now! But items like mysterious power stones are only useful when they’re turned into personal strength. Stacking them in storage rings turns them into trash!”

However, the group couldn’t possibly absorb more than one million pieces. There was a limit to how much one could take in, no matter the method. It was why the Xus had dumped the stones in their vaults as reserves.

Such low quality stones weren’t very effective for premier powerhouses. It would have much of a result for them unless the stones could be converted to sword energy for absorption.

“You’re going to be in a lot of trouble after this, kid.” Yuan Shuo inclined his head. “We’ve also been thoroughly assessed by others. If more opponents of similar caliber move against us next, we might be met with our doom. Even Tyrant Blade and Sky Sword might be included in the schemes.”

Bringing their full force to bear each time was a gesture that revealed one’s trump cards. Once the aces up their sleeves were more or less known, that would permit their enemies to make ample preparations. This knowledge had to be protected, therefore, major factions rarely clashed with each other. Even if there was a fight, the premier powerhouses rarely made a move.

They mostly threatened or intimidated others!

For example, part of Sky Sword’s strength had been assessed with this fight. Some trouble might descend upon Sky Sword Mountain next. He didn’t possess any baseline security just through being one of the seven divine mountains.

Li Hao nodded in agreement with his teacher’s words and smiled. “Thus, our most pressing need is to strengthen ourselves. We can’t let the enemy know us inside and out. When they think they can handle us, we’ll be able to catch them by surprise and strike back. We’ll wear them down through attribution!”

It was an easy sentiment to voice, but execution-wise…

Li Hao put this worry out of his mind and quickly asked, “Have you made new breakthroughs with the Five Styles, teacher?”

“Yes.” Yuan Shuo freely shared his knowledge. He’d always possessed a flamboyant bearing, it’d just been crushed during those many years of suppression. Now that he’d broken through, he naturally won’t continue to keep such a low profile. “I’ve pretty much walked Summoner of Spirit to the very end. What comes next is Refiner of Spirit!”

Both Hong Yitang and Light Sword couldn’t help but look at him.

“Curious, are you?” Yuan Shuo chuckled. They didn’t respond. “Hahaha, it’s normal to be curious. Despite how strong you are, your road forward is broken, isn’t it?”

“It’s not completely broken,” Hong Yitang exhaled. “We have some thoughts, but they’re hard to manifest at this current stage.”

“I know them!” Yuan Shuo chuckled. “You guys still can’t resolve the matter of the organs, can you? And you’re struggling with whether or not to break your locks?”

The two nodded. Correct, and it wasn’t just their worries, but that of all premier martial masters.

Yuan Shuo threw his head back with laughter. “I’ve thought through certain things and studied the many ancient books that I possess. I’ve discovered that some of the daos in the ancient civilization are different from how modern day humans walk their paths. The three cavities, indestructible golden body, and core origin that the ancient records speak of are all different now!

“Ancient powerhouses ultimately trod down the path of core origin. It could look different now and be no longer applicable. Perhaps our supernatural locks have replaced these.

“In your current state, your organs suffer the most when you unseal yourself. But according to the ancient records, our organs should be able to support such an eruption. They cannot do so now because our locks are too strong. When they break, the eruption that results is far stronger than what was present in the ancient civilization…”

etvolare’s Thoughts

Wow, if they tried absorbing one million mysterious power stones... they’d probably pop like balloons.