Star Gate

After he sent the married couple away, Li Hao took out a few items. The desk was covered in storage rings before long, but he continued to fish out more. He had more than two thousand of these incredibly precious items in front of him at the end. Nearly half of those he’d captured tonight owned one.

The rest didn’t because they were either servants or staff. True nobles nearly each had their own. There were so many!

There were also rings that belonged to the Four Seas Company—their heavyweights, metamorphosis, and Novas. Some came from Four Seas Island, others from Skystar Colosseum…

There were too many. Li Hao’s head ached as he looked at them. He used to like opening storage rings as each one was a surprise. He’d inspected the ones from the Lu treasury with Yuan Shuo and the rest, but now he faced more than several dozen times what he’d examined before. if he spent three minutes taking inventory of one ring, two thousand rings would equal six thousand minutes…

It would take him four or five days of not eating, drinking, or sleeping to finish it all. Taking inventory also wasn’t as simple as just looking at everything, so three minutes might not be enough for one ring.

Li Hao laughed ruefully. Since when did he start fretting over having too many storage rings? He did today!

He picked up the communicator on the desk and didn’t care who picked up. “Have Golden Spear and Mu Lin come see me!”

“Yes, right away…”

Li Hao hung up, slightly envious of Ole Hou. How nice it was to have a secretary! A quick word ensured that everything he wanted was arranged for. How tragic his circumstances were, he had to do everything himself! He even had to make his own call for the people he wanted.

Golden Spear and Mu Lin walked in after a few minutes, not surprised to see Li Hao present. They knew where Hou Xiaochen had run off to. The young man looked quite daring in taking over someone else’s place!

“Senior Golden Spear, Brother Second Mu…”

Mu Lin smiled awkwardly and Golden Spear inclined his head. The latter seemed to be slightly brooding and appeared thinner than before. He felt older now as repeated shocks had thrown him deeper into low spirits.

The fight of the North Sea, the eastern continent, and now Southern Fist in battle today… All of these Silver Moon martial masters were unequivocally telling him that they were strong, but he was weak.

Seven Swords, Three Spears, Four Blades, Twin Fists… The Three Spears had fallen behind! Therefore, he had almost nothing to say.

“Director Li!” Mu Lin was as cheery as always. “Everyone from the Colosseum has been locked away. Is there anything else?”

“Mm.” Li Hao nodded. “Have the Silver Moon Guards assemble… This place has a campground for troops, does it not?”

“Yes, oh yes. It’s right next to us—a huge complex. The lords of Skystar City really know how to have a great time! There’s manors like these all over the Avenue of the Nine Ministries and are easily several dozen acres each. It’s not a problem to station one thousand people there.”

“Take me to them.”

Mu Lin was startled. What for? To usurp power?

Ahem… I’m really thinking too much. Surely not. Then… what for?

Li Hao didn’t explain himself, neither did Golden Spear ask further. The two walked outside with Li Hao. When other Night Watchers saw the young man along the way, they snapped crisp salutes.

“Commander!”

“Greetings to Commander Li!”

“……” They were all very respectful and dropped the “vice” portion of the young man’s honorific. As for Hou Xiaochen, most hailed him Director Hou. The commanders of the five directions were dead in all but name. It was Hou Xiaochen’s recent actions and then Li Hao’s boldness that made the position known throughout the dynasty again.

Everyone knew that there was a Skystar Commander Office beneath the Night Watchers of the dynasty. And who was its leader? The public believed it to be Li Hao.

The young man held himself aloof and ignored everyone. It ran counter to his usual actions of greeting everyone with a friendly face. There was no need to win over people now. In his current state, he didn’t think much of all official personnel in the dynasty capital. They had to know what had been occurring on Four Seas Island, so everyone of this era chose to be blind and deaf.

He didn’t like it. Perhaps it was a helpless situation and he shouldn’t vent his anger on them. They were very weak and could not withstand the nine ministries. Everyone had their difficulties. Should he expect some Sunflares and Solars to overthrow the nine ministries?

Li Hao understood all this, but the pride of a young man refused to let him forgive these people for the moment.

……

The young man arrived next door amid a crowd of respectful well-wishers. The yard in the complex was massive as this used to be the residence of a duke. It’d been taken over by the nine ministries and become the campgrounds of the Silver Moon Guards.

The Dominators who refused to accept Li Hao before were completely subdued when they saw the young man again. Even Chen Jin, the heir of Mountain Ax who’d opposed Li Hao before, had nothing to complain about now. There was less hostility from him, just a mixture of inexplicable emotions, sighs, and regrets.

There were numerous second and third generations of the thirty-six heroes among the Guard. Chen Jin counted as a second generation, as did Li Hao. The latter was just so young that he was younger than some third generations. But it was Li Hao who was acknowledged by the entire world as the Demon Sword. He was so strong! So incredibly strong that he could kill metamorphosis experts. There was nothing Chen Jin could do but accept the circumstances.

“Commander Li!” Everyone hailed him by his official title.

“Please don’t stand on ceremony.” Li Hao smiled. “Just call me by my name or Troop Leader Li. We’re all from Silver Moon and colleagues to boot…”

He hadn’t thought much of the Silver Moon Guards before, but this was a group of bonafide martial masters compared to whatever else was available in the surroundings. They were the true soldiers of this era. They fought pirates and took forthright action for any slights, then chose to silently guard the province after beating the pirates.

Li Hao hadn’t thought much of it before. Wasn’t this what should be done? Why should they be complimented for carrying out their duties?

But today, he smiled. They were worthy of praise. In an age like this, rare were those willing to truly face the pirates and safeguard their homeland. Much of his original anger had dissipated throughout the course of his travels.

These people had openly challenged him before and readily spoke of their enmity toward him. Compared to them, it was the smiling tigers that were the nine ministries that disgusted him. They tried to cheat or outwit each other, showing him smiles and friendliness, but wanting nothing more than to take his life whenever possible.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Chen Jin sighed with a blend of emotions. “Let us call you commander. Us Silver Moon martial masters stick to our hierarchies. We elevate those who are strong or ruthless, not to mention that your position is high to begin with as the direct disciple of the Five Styles King. You are the final disciple of the greatest among the thirty-six—we do not measure up to you to begin with.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Li Hao broke out in laughter.

“I mean it, that’s how things should be in the first place.” Chen Jin didn’t mind the nature of what he was saying and mentioned with regret, “What a pity that my master died to your master. Otherwise, my master… ai!”

He sighed with some regret. Mountain Ax had been one of the thirty-six, but he was dead. Those that Yuan Shuo killed were strong; their deaths usually came about as a result of being unable to pull his blows. This indirectly proved that Mountain Ax was very strong. What a pity that he’d died too early!

Li Hao found himself in awkward straits. Now that he knew more Silver Moon martial masters, things were sometimes difficult to navigate for him. He wouldn’t mind in times past as it was just another name that he didn’t recognize, but as more martial masters came out of the woodwork, he realized that as ornery as this group of people sometimes were, they were mostly honest and frank. At the very least, they were much better than the rest.

“Alright now, these are all trifling matters,” Golden Spear announced faintly. “A bunch of Silver Moon martial masters died from various fights back in the day. Even I killed my fair share. Challenge him for revenge if you have the ability to. If not, shut up and don’t mention it.”

The Guard were silent. Li Hao coughed dryly after a moment. There were a lot of people gathered at almost one thousand strong.

“I have a few storage rings here that need to be examined. I’d like everyone to help. Put the mysterious power stones, Water of Life, origin weapons, and the like in separate piles. Categorize the rest of the knick knacks for me in another system…”

The Guards stared wordlessly at him, as did Golden Spear!

Are you kidding me? This is what you disturbed everyone for?

He snapped his mouth shut in the next moment as Li Hao unreeled strings that held thousands of storage rings. Jaws dropped, eyes bugged out of their heads—martial masters could barely make sense of what they were seeing.

Golden Spear gaped as well. Thank… heavens I didn’t say anything or I’d be mortified right now. The young man did indeed need help from others. How long would it take for him to organize all of this on his own? A thousand helpers meant that one person needed to be in charge of just a few each. But since when were storage rings confiscated from criminals measured in units of thousands?

“Are you… not going to return these rings?” he couldn’t help but say. Golden Spear knew where these items had come from. He just hadn’t thought that Li Hao would claim them all.

“Return them?” Li Hao laughed. “There are no good people on Four Seas Island, why return them? There aren’t that many with the Colosseum either. How does anyone think of getting their ring back after it’s come into my possession? It’s already a show of mercy that they’ve come back alive!

“That… would… offend too many people,” Golden Spear questioned haltingly.

“Offend too many?” Li Hao sneered; he’d suddenly understood something. “I have my sword in hand, why would I be afraid of them? Silver Moon martial masters are forged through fights! Of the thirty-six heroes, Black Widow is held in contempt because she didn’t fight her way through her ranking. She got there by sleeping around! Thinking of this and that, what’s the point of so much thinking??”

etvolare’s Thoughts

Ahem, while the site was down, Refined Spork on Discord wishes for everyone to know...

Meanwhile, I was telling everyone in Great Hall it was that they weren’t reading enough SG lolol. It was so nice to see some of the OG readers! Herro to you guys!