Chapter 829: Faux Seven Elements (III)

Bam!

Panther’s stomach shook continuously as someone pummeled it from the inside.

“You son of a... dog of a... Panther, let me out!” He Yong’s furious howls could be faintly heard from outside.

The hell, man!

He was doing just fine and dandy with his cultivation and enjoying being bathed by Water of Life when something abruptly swallowed him! He knew that Panther was behind the deed when everything went dark in front of him.

Li Hao, on the other hand, looked at the dog with interest. He Yong was a three element Arcanus, but he couldn’t escape Panther’s stomach?

The dog shook its extended belly in obvious discomfort. It dry-retched before spitting out He Yong. The man rolled on the ground and sprang up angrily when he saw that everyone was staring dumbly at him. He glared viciously at the dog, “You trying to start a fight??”

He was proceeding just fine with his cultivation when this damned dog swallowed him. This was the height of bullying, it was!

There’s so many people around, why are you only swallowing me? Am I easier to bully? I’m stronger than Yu Luocha! Swallow her!

Panther seemed to understand the look in He Yong’s eyes, but it couldn’t be bothered to explain.

Yu Luocha has Hou Xiaochen supporting her and he’s practically a five element Arcanus now, he’s really scary! No one likes you, so there’s no problem swallowing you.

“That’s enough!” Li Hao coughed. He looked a bit pale as he’d expended a lot of stamina. The young man looked sternly at Panther. “Don’t go around randomly eating people. Senior Southern Fist hasn’t done anything to you. I know what you’re trying to say.”

He laughed after thinking it over. Not bad, the dog was still useful for something. While he couldn’t come to any conclusions regarding battle strength, Panth could devour energy and hide people. Li Hao had been debating how to enter the Hu ruins with his entire group. It was impossible to not draw suspicion as there were almost two dozen of them. Even though the supernatural characters concealed their true strength, the big tree wouldn’t brashly let all of them in like this.

Panther’s actions reminded him of another option. He’d taken up residence in the dog’s stomach when they visited the Steadfast Duke on the eastern continent. The black dog’s stomach was spacious and slightly resembled the internal world that the Black Armor had just mentioned. Holding two dozen people shouldn’t pose much of a problem. Living people could not enter a storage ring—that was the unique capability of the plant spirits.

“Then you can eat a little more, but not too much. Senior Tree is the key in our fight against the enemy. Satisfy the senior first!”

“Arf arf arf!” Panther rapidly bobbed its head and happily ran back to its feasting place.

Li Hao had just finished his next arrangements when a puppet materialized in front of him. “Teacher says that you damaged more things this time and are fined 4.5 million energy stones. If added to your previous fine, that makes for ten million. Don’t forget to pay off your fine!” The puppet dropped the act and outright spoke to Li Hao.

“I understand!” The young man nodded.

The puppet remained looking curiously at him. “You’re very strong...”

“You praise me too highly. I am not worth mention compared to you guys.”

“No, it’s not the same.” The puppet shook its head. “Here, we have the strongest methods, the strongest leaders, the best environment, the best conditions, the most excellent order, and the strongest sovereigns. Although we are indeed exemplary, we would not reach the same heights as you if given your environment. You are incredible!”

Li Hao smiled and was about to respond when the puppet continued, “Since you’re so strong, you can open the Star Gate, right?”

“......” The young man didn’t know how to respond.

“Can you tell us once you open it?” asked the puppet. “We... would like to leave too. We want to go back. We want to be buried at home if that’s the only way we can return. Please do so for us!”

“Um...”

“We’re already dead,” the puppet said earnestly. “Although we wish to follow the Human King’s august majesty once more and march on the heavens with him, we know that we may not have the chance to. But we really miss home, and we won’t have you do all this for free. All of us know supreme arts, truly supreme arts from our family.

“We are the so-called second and third generation disciples that people speak of. Our parents and ancestors are good friends with the Human King. There are true exalted emperors among our ancestors. If you wish it, we can teach you the arts of exalted emperors!”

Li Hao blinked. The true descendants of exalted emperors? That was different from him since he was an untold generation removed from his truly great ancestors. If fifty years denoted a generation, how many generations had his heritage been diluted? It must have been at least fifty thousand years since the ancient civilization according to his count!

But these puppets were second and third generations—they were the true descendants of the noble and mighty! No wonder they were so terrifying and strong even in death.

“I’ll... do my best!” He didn’t give a firm answer as he’d yet to lay eyes on this Star Gate that they spoke of.

Wait...

Was the door in space that seemed to exist in the center of Silver City’s eight trigrams the Star Gate that they mentioned? Li Hao frowned, this would be a difficult task then! That was a very dangerous locale as he seemed to have seen it before. The door might be sealing something away.

“Mm... trying your best is enough. Thank you!” The puppet quickly left. They would come make the request themselves since the Black Armor refused to say anything. Their teacher had considerations of face, they did not. They wanted to go home, even if the only way they could do so was in a coffin.

Li Hao spoke no further and immersed himself in cultivation. The rest came out of their trances in another few hours, each having progressed a bit more. However, they all knew that this was just the beginning. That had only been a replica they faced, the tree’s primary body was the truly thorny opponent.

“Everyone was active on the battlefield just now and experienced for yourselves how powerful a replica is,” Li Hao sighed. “The primary body... will be harder to manage. Someone might die and I’m not fully confident either...”

He Yong snorted before he finished. “That’s enough, us Silver Moon martial masters have seen all manner of occasions. Ask the old thug if he’s afraid of death. If he’s not, then that’s it. You don’t need to ask anyone else!”

“......” Chen Zhongtian flicked a glance at him; he wouldn’t dignify that comment with a response. “Commander Li, it’s a certainty that the plant spirit’s primary body is powerful. There’s another problem at the moment that urgently needs to be taken care of. As for killing the plant spirit, I naturally have no opinion otherwise.”

“What problem?”

“Ah... the plant spirit is so strong that we might die anytime,” Chen Zhongtian coughed dryly. “But we’ll just manage to preserve our lives if there’s Water of Life present. I think that each of us should be allotted one hundred drops as a life-preserving measure. We lack a healer, so we can only supplement through this regard. However, our need is great. We’ll need at least two thousand drops if everyone is given this in advance.

“So my thoughts are that the first line of offense and defense should be allotted this resource, such as Deputy Zhou Chuan, the last generation Iron Shirt, Earthturner Sword, and...” He didn’t finish his sentence—

and me! We’re the primary defense and will easily die if we don’t have Water of Life at the ready.

Li Hao smacked himself on the forehead, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “You guys probably thought about it, why didn’t you say anything? It somehow slipped my mind. I was only focused on killing the enemy!”

No one had reminded him of such an important detail—it took an outsider to shed some light. Meanwhile, the rest of the group hadn’t said anything not because it didn’t occur to them either, but because they knew that Water of Life had been used up. Nothing would result from their reminder.

“Don’t think of conserving resources for me,” Li Hao laughed. “This has to do with our survival.” He turned to the little tree. “How long will it take to create one thousand drops if you manufacture them now with no thought for the cost?”

“No thought for the cost?” came the little tree’s mental ripples. “The consumption rate will be at least three times greater than usual. It will be fast, but... isn’t that... too wasteful...”

“It’s fine!” Li Hao laughed. “Then let’s spend some time on this. The sky is yet to brighten and there’s no fear of wasting resources. I have a ton of mysterious power stones—more than fifty million left!”

There was no need to drag the process out to save resources. The big tree would sense it as soon as they emerged that its replica was no more. In fact, the group had to make good use of time so that the tree wouldn’t have a chance to recover.

“Alright, then I’ll... coalesce them right now!” The little tree was much stronger than before, so the conversion process was much faster. Since Li Hao had said to ignore the cost, there was no need for it to sparingly dole out mysterious power stones. It would have everything once they defeated the coconut tree’s primary body. It’d awakened for many years and received endless benefits from the Ministry of the Judiciary.

The little tree produced a vast quantity of Water of Life in less than two hours, consuming ten million stones to do so. Li Hao handed out the resource accordingly. Chen Zhongtian was beside himself as it was damned nice to be among the first to receive a share of the spoils.

After a while, Li Hao looked at everyone. “And now... I’m afraid I’ll have to ask everyone to enter Panther’s stomach!”

The dog was already waiting with an extended jaw.

You know how useful I am now, right?

As resigned as the group was by the proposed course of action, they knew that it was necessary. Each of them were swiftly swallowed and the little tree reentered the storage ring, leaving only Panther and Li Hao present in the field.

The young man laughed and slammed his palm at his head! Blood flowed out of his orifices and his presence wavered...

Panther jerked back and whined in surprise. Damn, the human was so vicious even to himself!

The torn injury on his chest remained; a smiling Li Hao turned to the black dog. “Does it make sense for you to be fine when I’m this injured?”

“Arf arf arf!” Panther barked in protest, but couldn’t escape Li Hao grabbing its tail and slamming down a palm strike.

“Only with effort made are there gains received. Otherwise, you won’t be getting even a mouthful of spit once we kill the coconut tree!”

“Arf arf!” Tears welled up in Panther’s eyes, but had to accept its fate. Its skin split and blood flowed freely. The dog strongly suspected that Li Hao was doing this on purpose as revenge. The human thought that it ate too much!