Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 23: Beautiful Bait

Qianye nodded his head and said, “That will be enough. I need information regarding the distribution of the surrounding dark race cities and strongholds, as well as all major events regarding the dark races within the year.”

“You’re more professional than I thought,” Lieutenant Colonel Ji said sincerely.

After he had sent off Ji Yuanjia, another major walked into the place and placed a suitcase on the table, saying, “These are your allocated supplies. Please, check them!”

Qianye opened the suitcase after he signed the papers. He saw a row of ten medicinal syringes aligned neatly inside the suitcase, and the label “Type Four Origin Power Booster” was pasted on them. These were all cultivation medicine for rank four Fighters!

The crest “Made by Dawn Empire” was located beneath the cover. Dawn Empire was a big player on the same level as Blackstone Heavy Industries in the arms industry. The origin power boosters produced by this company were high grade products almost never caught up to demand. Even the main corps could only get a small amount of supplies, and it would take an elite corps like the Red Scorpion to enjoy an unlimited amount of supplies. But even then they had to make the exchange with military merits.

For a greenhorn like Qianye, it would take an entire year of hard work before he could accumulate enough points to exchange a box of medicine like this, and that was assuming that he didn’t use them on other equipment.

Qianye fell silent for a moment before he spoke to the major, “Please inform Miss Qiqi that I am very grateful for this.”

The major smiled and said, “She will hear your words in full.”

The etiquette teacher would only arrive by the morrow, so Qianye planned to spend all of his remaining time on cultivation. Every bit of growth counted before he officially began the mission.

The fact that Qiqi had given him so much before the mission even began was beyond Qianye’s imaginations already, but he knew that there were no such thing as a free lunch in this world. The higher his pay, the more dangerous his mission would become, even if he couldn’t yet determine where the danger would come from. After all, hiring a hunter and giving him so many resources seemed unnecessary if they were just looking to win military merits from the dark races.

Qianye closed the main door, picked up the medicines and entered the cultivation room.

Inside the biggest waterside pavilion of the back garden, Yin Qiqi was lying lazily on her back and feeling a little sleepy as she stretched her long legs. Two maids were massaging her legs while Ji Yuanjia reported his conversation with Qianye to her. He especially emphasized on Qianye’s reactions when they spoke.

“Transfer the full command of the 131th Company over to him now!” Yin Qiqi looked just as absentminded as ever.

“But we still don’t know much about him. Should we observe him for a little longer?” Ji Yuanjia advised her tactfully.

Yin Qiqi covered her mouth and let out a yawn, “We don’t need to know him. Yu Yingnan already does. His rank is weak, but his strength is acceptable. His background is clean, and he doesn’t belong to any forces. Yu Yingnan also mentioned that Qianye was a person who would do his best once he accepted his pay. Oh, right, he’s also pretty damn handsome, so what else can we ask for?”

Ji Yuanjia’s eyebrows twitched, and he fixed his gaze at the tip of his feet and pretended that he hadn’t heard the last line.

“A reinforced company is nothing, so let him play with it all he wants. Who knows, he might even give me a pleasant surprise!”

Ji Yuanjia smiled and continued to persuade with a mild tone, “But Miss, you only have the military strength of a reinforced battalion, and you’ve just given away one third of that power.”

Qiqi said lazily, “They’re cannon fodder. What can they do for me even if I have twice that number? Gu Liyu will be using his connections and delivering us a squadron’s Arms of War soon. Of course, they’ll have a different name.”

Ji Yuanjia’s smile immediately turned a little unnatural when he heard Gu Liyu’s name. However, since Qiqi wasn’t looking at him he immediately concealed his loss of self control and spoke as if he meant it from the bottom of his heart, “The situation will become much better if we could have a squadron’s Arms of War.”

There was no doubt that fifty Arms of War soldiers would be very useful, but it still wasn’t enough to secure a victory in a competition at the level of the Yin Family’s successor examination. That was why Ji Yuanjia had taken care to remind her out of public and private reasons.

The way he expressed his concerns were very subtle, but Qiqi had figured his underlying meaning immediately. She smiled faintly and said, “It’s fine, Gu Liyu is just an intermediary. He could sell his entire family and he still wouldn’t have enough money to hire a squadron’s Arms of War.”

Ji Yuanjia immediately smiled in agreement and said, “An average landowning household isn’t all that better than a poor family. You are still the most important factor in this trade, or the Arms of War wouldn’t have accepted this mission even if Lieutenant Colonel Gu did have the money.”

Qiqi smiled and said, “I do have to spend a little brain power and pay a tiny price to defeat those overly ambitious, but extremely lacking siblings of mine. The Arms of War is just the preliminary preparations. You will know what my real trump card is some time later. For now, do your best to cooperate with Little Qianye and let him play as he pleases. This pretty little thing may be more than just an obvious bait. I have this this feeling that he will attract more than just attention for us. It may very well be a pleasant surprise.”

“I will arrange everything.”

Qiqi waved him away, and Ji Yuanjia left the room just like that.

Inside the cultivation room, Qianye had injected the medicine into his body and waited quietly for it to take effect. Right now, he had tossed that bizarre mission to the back of his mind and pondered about another critically important question instead. He was thinking that Qiqi had too many experts around her.

The young miss hadn’t concealed her origin power, and it was very obvious that she had ignited seven origin nodes. This also meant that she was a genuine lieutenant colonel through and through. Moreover, her aides were all either majors or lieutenant colonels, and they obviously possessed the strength to match their military ranks too.

As for that Auntie Lan, he couldn’t figure out her strength at all. This meant that they were at least three ranks apart, and that she might very well be a rank eight expert. Moreover, this was just the strength Yin Qiqi had displayed on the surface. If he were to consider the strength she had concealed, a Champion rank expert might not be so farfetched a possibility.

Ever since Qianye had ascended to rank four, the black blood inside his body had sunk into complete hibernation and appeared as if it had completely merged in one with his bloodline. They were so undetectable that he could touch a mithril object and trigger no response whatsoever as long as it didn’t draw blood. But still, this wasn’t a permanent solution. It was unlikely that he could continue hiding the presence of his blood power if he was heavily injured. What should he do if that happens?

Qianye didn’t know that Qiqi possessed such tremendous authority before he had accepted this mission, but he was no longer at a point where he could breach the agreement. One of the reasons he couldn’t do so was because of the astronomically expensive supplies Yin Qiqi had given him, and the other reason was Old 2 hint to him before that Miss Qiqi had the fates of two families’ gripped within her palm. One of them was Yu Yingnan’s family.

For now, he could only improvise every step of the way. It wasn’t an impossible task. He was a hunter and a long range sniper, so he could request for a solo combat position.

The medicine started to take effect, and Qianye immediately drove away the stray thoughts in his mind. He began perceiving the strength of the origin power derived from the medicine.

The ten type four medicines were the standard dosage necessary for a cultivator to climb up a rank. They were enough to push an average cultivator from the early stage of rank four to the peak, so that they might attempt to activate the fifth origin node. But for Qianye, these ten medicines were just enough to replenish a small half of his origin power. He was still a long distance away from taking on the rank five barrier.

The rich presence of origin power also caused the blood energies to become restless. The normal blood energies all came out of his heart and began intercepting and devouring origin power to grow fuller than before. Ever since the gold blood energy had gone into slumber, these normal blood energies had not only returned to their original number of seven, but also became even bigger and stronger than they were before. Moreover, Qianye also sensed the hint of an odd pulse inside his heart. It would appear that new blood energies might be born very soon.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

It was at this moment the small cocoon that the gold blood energy had transformed into suddenly shook as if it was attracted by the full normal blood energies. It was as if something was about to break through the walls of the cocoon and break out in the next moment.

The little gold cocoon was covered in cracks in the blink of an eye. It looked like it would shatter at any second.

Suddenly, the normal blood energies forgot all about capturing origin power and escaped into his heart like frightened lambs. The purple blood energy had just captured a normal blood energy and was about devour it, when it seemed to notice the little gold cocoon’s changes and actually let go. It swiftly swam back into the rune of advanced vampire constitution and curled into a ball, head high and combat ready.

A small hole finally appeared on the little gold cocoon, and an unusually tiny gold blood energy got out of the cocoon and swam everywhere as it liked. It didn’t look like it had changed much other than its shrunken size. However, when it swam so fast that it left behind an aftershadow, Qianye realized that it had a new dark gold colored thread on its body.

The gold blood energy instantly circled around the advanced vampire constitution rune a dozen or so times before it finally gave up as if it couldn’t find a gap in the purple blood energy’s defense and returned to its own rune. Then, it began consuming the fragments of the little gold cocoon.

When it was done eating the fragments, the gold blood energy dashed into his heart like a bolt of golden lightning and dragged out a normal blood energy that was at least a dozen or so times bigger than it was, devouring it. The normal blood energy vanished entirely in just the blink of an eye, but the gold blood energy apparently found the normal blood energy insufficient to fill even the gap of its teeth as it dove into his heart like a starving tiger once more, dragging the normal blood energies out into the open and consuming them. The seven normal blood energies was quickly consumed to just two, but unlike last time the gold blood energy wasn’t content to stop here. It actually dragged the sixth normal blood energy out of his heart and devoured it in a few gulps.

Now that he had a couple of prior experiences to refer to, Qianye immediately thought that the situation was bad. If he allowed the gold blood energy to devour further, wouldn’t he lose all of his normal blood energies?

He had no idea what kind of consequences would arise once the balance between the three types of blood energies was destroyed. Even if there were no consequences, the normal blood energies needed time to regrow its numbers, and his innards would absolutely not be able to sustain the impact of thirty Combat Formula cycles or above without the blood energies’ protection.

“Stop!” Qianye was extremely anxious when he saw the gold blood energy charging into his heart once more. He consciously sent it an order to stop and circulated his origin power to build a blue glowing origin barrier outside his heart too.

The gold blood energy bumped into the barrier lightly, and a huge hole appeared on the barrier Qianye had created with all his might. It charged past the barrier and into his heart. But it was at this moment the gold blood energy abruptly stopped as if it had sensed Qianye’s will. Although half its body had already slipped into his heart, it reluctantly released the last, pitiful normal blood energy and swam back into his veins.

Qianye immediately let out a sigh of relief and felt a vague sense of happiness at the same time. For the longest time, the blood energies had operated autonomously whether or not he was in the middle of a cultivation or battle. This was the first time he had successfully transmitted his will to the blood energies, and obtained a limited amount of obedience and response too. Perhaps this meant that he might be able to control his blood power one day and needn’t worry about the infection and influence of darkness.

The gold blood energy didn’t grow idle despite being thwarted by Qianye. It went back to the purple blood energy and circled around it a dozen or so times in hunger. The purple blood energy simply hid inside the rune in full defense and raised its tip like a ferocious giant python that was expressing its fighting will. Finally, the gold blood energy gave up resentfully and returned to the rune of Eye Ability: Dark Vision, entrenching itself inside.

Starry light started dispersing from the gold blood energy and melting into the ability rune, causing its lines to overlap, expand and become even more complicated. In the end, an independent, small rune detached itself from the bigger rune and floated beside the Eye Ability rune. The two runes were independent, but also closely connected to each other. The smaller rune was like a small room that was built next to the main building.

The new rune gave Qianye a new ability called “Concealed Bloodline”. It hid his blood power and pushed the origin power sequence he refracted to the gray area between Daybreak and Evernight.

Simply put, it was no longer possible to detect the ability user’s origin attribute through normal means after this ability was activated. In Qianye’s case, the Combatant Formula was of the Daybreak attribute, so if he were to activate this ability and the Combatant Formula at the same time, he would be able to conceal the presence of his blood power completely. It would stay effective even if he was injured in combat.

Suddenly, Qianye recalled Nighteye.