Chapter 527: A Scary Guess

Up till that point, Shang Xia gained a pretty in-depth understanding of the Tongyou Institution’s foundations. In fact, he knew about the number of Martial Extermination Realm experts in the You Continent.

When he saw the 4 of them appearing in the Manyu Continent, Shang Xia finally came to the conclusion that Kou Chongxue was probably risking it all to obtain benefits from the Manyu Continent.

Thinking back to the battlefield between the two worlds, Shang Xia was afraid that the only Martial Extermination Realm expert of the institution left was Ge Qingzhu.

Other than Deputy Patriarch Liu Zhiyuan in the Tongyou Institution, there was probably only Song You whose condition was unknown.

The Tongyou City wasn’t much better. Ji Yu of the Ji Clan and Yun Yichen were the only 2 Martial Extermination Realm experts other than those from the Shang Clan. As for the Shang Clan, there was Shang Jian who might or might not have broken through. There was also Shang Pei who was in the Taihang Mountains.

There was also Zhao Hengchun from the Zhao Clan who seemed to disappear ever since the Tongyou Instituion’s expedition to the battlefield between the two worlds. No one knew if he was healing from his injuries or sent off by Kou Chongxue on a secret mission.

Along with the appearance of the 4 newcomers, a new batch of resources was delivered. A portion of them was medicine used to treat injuries and restore inner qi.

It was said that in order to craft the new batch of medicine, Grandmaster Ge Muchen had to personally take action.

Liu Qinglan received the resources before taking out the best of them for Yun Jing.

After the medicine was passed into Yun Jing’s hands, Liu Qinglan received great news. Deputy Patriarch Yun estimated that she would be able to greatly reduce her recovery time because of the medicine. The experts of the Tongyou Institution would were too heavily injured would also be able to quickly restore their combat capabilities.

Of course, Liu Qinglan wouldn’t wait for everyone to be fully recovered before starting the next phase of their plan. That was because the Tongyou Institution had Shang Xia’s Spirit Extermination Gourd to threaten the experts of other factions. At the very least, no one would dare to make a move on the members of the Tongyou Institution as long as they were 200 miles away from the protection barrier.

Well, Shang Xia’s mission wasn’t to reclaim those regions where they were sure wouldn’t be under threat. He was supposed to go even further to deal with troubles there.

…

When Shang Xia first emerged from the Tongyou Instituion’s territory, he was extremely cautious. He was afraid that experts from the other factions had set up a trap for him.

Only after he arrived hundreds of miles away without any mishap did he start to relax. He realized he had underestimated the threat he made. No matter which power it was, their main goal was to split up the benefits of the Manyu Continent. They wouldn’t waste more time messing with the Tongyou Institution after learning that the new madman Shang Xia was ready to blow up the entire continent.

In fact, their operation to wipe out the Tongyou Institution back then seriously delayed their progression of plans for the Manyu Continent.

Of course, from a certain perspective, one could say that they achieved their goal.

Regardless if they were trying to take advantage of the situation or if they wished to beat the Tongyou Institution when they were down, those factions who wanted to mess with the Tongyou Institution succeeded.

It was a pity Shang Xia had to appear at the last second to throw a wrench in their plans. The moment the jade sword emerged from the Spirit Extermination Gourd, everyone knew that they had miscalculated. If the Tongyou Institution went crazy and decided to drag everyone down with them, no one would benefit. As such, they chose to retreat.

Since there was no possibility they could take advantage of the Tongyou Institution any further, they found no reason to remain in the region. Shang Xia was being too careful.

Moreover, Shang Xia’s divine perception was no joke. It could cover a massive range and it was extremely sensitive. It wouldn’t be easy for anyone to conceal themselves to try to set up an ambush for him.

Originally, Shang Xia was curious about how they were going to draw the fragments of the Manyu Continent to the Azure Origin World after it was destroyed. Now that he had left the core region of the Tongyou Institution on Liu Qinglan’s orders, he understood what they had been doing the whole time they were there. They had been laying down a massive formation that went deep into the ground.

𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

With the core region as the center, the Tongyou Institution laid formations every 100 miles. It went deep into the earth below and it maintained a faint connection with the main formation back in the core region. Because they had been on the Manyu Continent for the past 2 years or so, they managed to progressively implement their mega large-scale formation. Currently, it spanned close to 1200 miles from the main core region of the Tongyou Institution.

According to Chu Jia’s calculations, the moment the Manyu Continent shatters, the Tongyou Institution would be able to rely on their formation to hold a land mass with close to a 200 mile radius!

That should be how large the Tongyou institution was planning to expand for the moment in the Manyu Continent.

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Also, if they manage to bring back such a huge swathe of land to the Azure Origin World without losing much of it in the process, the You Continent would probably double in size! When that happened, the You Continent would be restored to around 40 to 50 percent of its original size!

One had to know that the current You Continent was actually really tiny. It was barely passable if they counted the Thousand Leaf Mountain Range into their calculations, but otherwise, the You Continent controlled by the Tongyou Institution was actually a mere blip on the map of the Azure Origin World.

Moving the entire land mass they had planned for back to the Azure Origin World with the least amount of loss would be the best-case scenario. However, reality had its way of dealing with people who only prepared for the ideal outcome.

At the end of the day, the Tongyou Institution could only blame their lack of preparation on the fact that they entered the Manyu Continent too late.

Chu Jia already made some estimations. She could tell that those holy lands with huge foundations who started their operations a long time ago would have already expanded their formations to cover 2500 to 3000 miles!

The larger the area they wanted to control, the weaker the connection between the formations used to hold the land mass together. Because of that, they would have to make up for the weak connection with a huge quantity of formations. If one formation wasn’t enough, they would lay down a second one! If a second one didn’t provide a satisfactory connection, they would just lay down a third! Because of that, they used a huge amount of resources. Even the powerful holy lands would have to pay a massive price to lay down so many formations.

The Tongyou Institution was considered a pauper in front of those massive existences that had existed for hundreds of years. Even if they learned about the Manyu Continent back then, they wouldn’t have been able to throw so many resources at it.

Those holy lands might be powerful and rich, but it seemed as though a radius of 3000 miles was the limit. They weren’t able to expand their control further than that.

Now that Shang Xia was strolling around the territory controlled by the Tongyou Institution, his true mission was revealed. He had to check the regions where the formations they laid down were located. If he ran into any other experts who had malicious intentions for the Tongyou Institution or those who wanted to destroy the formation, he was to deal with them immediately. He could choose to chase them away, or he could even kill them if things came down to it!

It was possible that the Martial Extermination Realm experts of the other factions would try to cause trouble in the Tongyou Institution’s territory, but it was more likely for the experts of the Manyu Continent to be involved.

Shang Bo, Yun Jing, and Chu Jia were the only 3 members of the Tongyou Institution who knew where the formations were laid down before Shang Xia was given the information, but it wasn’t difficult for others to find out where those formations were. As long as they paid a little attention, it was possible to notice some anomalies in the area that contained the formations.

Of course, experts of other factions would need a lot of time if they wished to do something like that.

As the sayings went, burying a mine was a lot easier than finding one.

That was also why Yun Jing wasn’t in a rush to send the experts of the institution out to check on those formations. She dragged things out for more than a month before finally sending Shang Xia on a mission to inspect them.

As Shang Xia went around to check the formations, he had to take some precautions. He couldn’t follow the map Chu Jia drew for him directly. If he did and was tracked by other experts, the location of all their formations would be revealed!

He eventually decided to visualize the location of the next formation he wanted to inspect in his mind before flying in its general direction. Along the way, he would stop at random places whenever he felt like it. Sometimes he would stop miles away from the actual formation. With his powerful divine perception that could cover tens of miles, there was no need for him to check out the formation with his eyes.

As long as the formation didn’t look destroyed, Shang Xia wouldn’t even bother flying over to the actual area where the formation was laid. That would ensure that anyone who had the ability to observe him in the dark wouldn’t be able to locate the formations easily.

Nearly 300 miles away from the core region of the Tongyou Institution, Shang Xia hadn’t found any formations that had been destroyed. However, that might be because those were located closer to the core region the Tongyou Institution controlled.

When Shang Xia arrived 500 miles away, he could see several large holes in the ground in random locations. They were close to where some formations were situated, but luckily, they didn’t affect its operation.

Examining the holes, Shang Xia could tell that Martial Extermination Realm experts weren’t behind the destruction. In fact, those holes didn’t seem to be made by Martial Intent Realm experts either. They were most likely dug by some Martial Extremity Realm cultivator or something.

With his extermination origins swirling around his body, Shang Xia created a massive gale that flattened the earth. The soil and dirt that had been dug out returned to the pits and the region returned to its original state.

Finally arriving 600 miles away from the core region, Shang Xia’s flying figure paused as he detected one of the formations deep in the ground damaged.

Extending his divine perception to its limit, everything within a 50 mile radius could be felt by Shang Xia. He didn’t detect any high-level experts. Instead, he noticed several villages in his surroundings.

When he used his divine perception earlier, he didn’t expect to find the culprit. Instead, he wanted to ensure that no one had their eyes on him before he went to where the destroyed formation lay. Satisfied that no one was spying on him, he quickly pushed a formation Chu Jia made in advance deep into the ground.

When he was done, he resumed his journey and started to fly around. It didn’t take long to discover that those villages he noticed with his divine perception had been abandoned.

From the looks of it, not only did those villagers move away a long time ago, they even brought everything they could with them.

After traveling hundreds of miles out, Shang Xia finally cleared away a small portion of his doubts. However, there were still huge question marks that filled his mind. He wondered what would happen to the ordinary citizens of the Manyu Continent when it was destroyed.

Disregarding those high-level cultivators of the Manyu Continent, Shang Xia wanted to know what would happen to the millions or even billions of mortals on the Manyu Continent. Were they just going to wait for the apocalypse to happen?

Shang Xia didn’t dare to let his thoughts wander any further than that. He refused to wonder if the Azure Origin World and the Azure Spiritual World were behind the destruction of the Manyu Continent.

Eventually, he thought about his grandfather Shang Bo and how he was trying to break through to the Martial Dipper Realm by borrowing the world origin that would emerge when the Manyu Continent was destroyed.

From the current looks of things, the Tongyou Institution chose a secluded region to take over. They might have also shifted the aboriginal mortals away from their villages in order to prevent them from getting caught up in the crossfire. From that, Shang Xia could tell the attitude of the Tongyou Institution. They didn’t wish to kill wantonly and cause mass destruction, but they weren’t exactly trying to turn the situation around either.

“Huh?” A sudden thought filled Shang Xia’s mind the next instant.