Chapter 936: The Martial World is Everywhere (III)

Director General Wang was rather envious that the golden body had gone to his martial uncle. Although he didn’t want it, he still drooled over it.

“There is further use left in this pool of treasure.” The Black Armor suddenly looked at Li Hao. “This was used to nurture the Empyrean King body and with ninety percent of its energy depleted, it’s perfect for you modern humans. A quick soak will strengthen your physical body by thirty percent! Spending a day and night will double your physical body’s strength! Three days will place you on par with a ninth rank of my time...”

“It’s that good?” Li Hao brightened. “That makes a highly valuable treasure! Are the effects that apparent?”

“Of course, this is so much better than Water of Life and other similar resources. Water of Life is coalesced by plant spirits, after all. This pool contains a lot of other ingredients and it might be the only one of its kind in the world.”

“Can it hold a lot of people?” Li Hao vastly asked.

“Mmhmm. Granting them one-tenth of the strength of an Empyrean King would be astounding enough already. The pool can accommodate eighty to one hundred people of your level.”

“Teacher.” Li Hao enthusiastically turned to Yuan Shuo. “Will we quickly see a lot of seventh element Arcanus if we shove all of the Silver Moon martial masters inside?”

“......” The group was extraordinarily surprised by his reaction.

“What about yourself?” the Black Armor couldn’t help but ask. The young man had given him the body and wanted to give the pool to Silver Moon martial masters. What about himself?

Li Hao... was an interesting person.

“I have my ways,” grinned the young man. “And right now, I don’t like forcing myself to improve. Wouldn’t you say so, teacher?”

“You’re referring to the secondary dimension,” Yuan Shuo responded with some bafflement. “But... it’s not fast enough. You’re better off just jumping in for a bath.”

“Now that’s not the way to look at it, teacher,” Li Hao chuckled. “You only have five auras, whereas I’ll have nine soon. I’m totally different! Not to mention, I’ve found another way that I can make better use of. By the way, that place isn’t called the secondary dimension anymore, but the Hao Cosmos!”

“What?”

“The ‘hao’ of a bright moon and cosmos as that’s an entire realm of stars. The Hao Cosmos!”

Yuan Shuo blinked, stupefied, then smacked himself on the forehead with great regret. “I completely forgot about this! I should’ve called it the Shuo Cosmos!”

The crowd was completely turned around by these two.

Aren’t we discussing business here?? You guys ignore the ground littered with treasure and loftily converse of matters far beyond your reach.

Even Director General Wang drooled over what they’d found, but master and disciple didn’t seem to think much of them.

It was like a beggar treating one million star coins as trash! Did they not know the inherent value of what was around them, or did they really think that they could surpass this treasure?

“Where are the self-destruct mechanisms set up?” Li Hao looked around after a while of conversation.

The Black Armor materialized a clear dome of light in the air with a wave of his hand. It extended in all directions like tree roots; there was a black hole in it.

“Infuse this hole with energy,” explained the Black Armor. “Give it roughly the same amount of energy as a peak Immortal and it will detonate the entire mine. But there are also countermeasures. That guy didn’t use this mechanism—I would’ve been able to reverse the self-destruct sequence had he set it in motion!”

“How would you have reversed it?”

The Black Armor looked at Li Hao. This was classified knowledge back in the day. But now... Forget it, it didn’t matter anymore.

“It’s very simple. It’s just the method wouldn’t occur to the enemy and non-executives wouldn’t be aware of it...” the Black Armor chattered for a bit, but didn’t give a direct answer.

Li Hao started to grow impatient and even Director General Wang raised an eyebrow.

C’mon, out with it, I’m curious too!

The Black Armor eventually coughed with awkwardness and muttered, “There’s a... unique safety in this mechanism. If the enemy wants to activate the self-destruct, all you have to do is yell at it ‘the Human King is benevolent and kind, he loves his people like his own children. Glory to peace and may humanity reign ever prosperous!’. These words will stop the mechanism from following through.”

“......” People exchanged glances with each other, shocked by the reveal.

Seriously?? How is this the safety mechanism?

The Black Armor coughed again—it was a difficult task to simulate coughing through mental strength. He lowered his voice, “This was the reversal personally set up by the Human King himself. He said that in a crucial moment, the enemy might be surprised by these words. That will give us the chance to strike back.”

The plant spirits furiously waved their treetops; there was nothing wrong with this line of thinking. Their own side was shocked out of their wits upon hearing this. The enemy would only be more dumbfounded.

They would probably think we were raving mad and delusional after all that. I suppose... that would give us an opening to counterattack?

“Now you know, very few did back in the day,” the Black Armor coughed once more. “Our main concern was that a counterattack would be futile if our forces were too weak anyway. And if a powerhouse was on the scene, they could outright prevent the mine from exploding.”

Li Hao sighed with appreciation. At least, he thought it was appreciation. This method was so sophisticated that even the enemy would be completely confounded.

Ah, the Human King!

The young man’s thoughts once more traveled back to the figure with explosive killing intent, slaying one enemy after another with his sword. He even faulted the enemy for not killing themselves after he slaughtered them all. Was such a person benevolent and kind?

Did he praise glory and love the people like his own?

Alright, perhaps the last detail was true. Li Hao wouldn’t think too hard on it for now, but the first two claims were horseshit!

He shook his head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. The young man didn’t say anything. This place might be the only big mine in all of Silver Moon Territory. Although he knew the countermeasure, slim were the chances that he actually used it.

“Does this mean to say that the vice commander outside is in cahoots with this one?” Li Hao looked outward, despite not being able to see the mine entrance or sense any major disturbance. “What about the others? The troop leaders and soldiers? Have they all betrayed New Martial?”

“I don’t know.” The Black Armor shook his head at the outside world. “But this Vice Commander Sun probably knows the situation. The bramble rose might as well. He’s left these plant spirits alive on purpose so they can prevent certain people from entering this place after the first awakening.”

There was a plant spirit at every entrance, but the humans were all dead! It now appeared that the enemy had purposefully let the plant spirits survive so they could prevent other unexpected developments from happening. They knew that though the plant spirits survived, they would be very weak. Despite that trade-off, the plant spirits still prevented anyone from disturbing the scarlet shadow from nurturing the physical body.

It was rather surprising that the other side hadn’t been able to set foot into this place either after the first awakening. If they’d awakened then and desperately needed energy, they might have sent people to remove some ore.

But they hadn’t!

Had the unexpected happened after all?

The Black Armor found it difficult to trace what had happened in the past, but he could guess at a bit given present circumstances. Since the bramble rose had broken through in the face of such conditions, perhaps... something interesting had indeed taken place.

Otherwise, it didn’t make sense for it to be stronger when everyone else had become weaker.

“Then take the body for now, martial uncle,” Director General Wang quickly raised. “You’ve consumed a lot of energy and should quickly recover before the enemy comes marching in. It’ll be much easier to take care of them when you have the body! I... hope to capture Sun Xin alive!”

He truly hoped to get some information out of the vice commander. Li Hao might not care who it was that’d turned traitor, but he did.

He really did! It was very important! If the Black Armor didn’t take the body, he might not be a match for their upcoming opponents after everything he’d expended in that fight.

“Please take the body first, senior,” Li Hao quickly said as well. “Ah, this scarlet shadow hasn’t fully died. It’s just been scattered and its core is held within the mirror. Can we get any information out of it?”

“It’ll be hard!” the Black Armor quickly replied. “Very hard! An existence of that level rarely speaks the truth.”

“I see...” Li Hao nodded. “If its ponderous mental strength is dissipating, does that contain a lot of core origin power?”

The Black Armor blinked, then nodded. “Its great dao is still present and hasn’t been broken, but I suspect that it’s from Initial Martial. It might not have a core origin dao then, which is why I pronounced their death. What would you like to do?”

“My thoughts are, since its mental strength is mostly preserved in the mirror, can someone grow stronger after they absorb it?”

“Ah... you need to be careful with that. When it comes to strong mental entities, the slightest bit of mental strength might lead to full resurrection. Be careful during the absorption, they might take over your consciousness instead!”

“That’s fine, I’d have a powerful plant spirit or ancient human absorb it if I gave it to anyone,” Li Hao said joyfully. “I’ll explain all of this ahead of time so they’re not surprised.”

The redwood and others shifted with anticipation, but Li Hao didn’t turn to them.

You guys... have had enough.

They’d already absorbed several plant spirits worth of core origin and indestructible matter. It wouldn’t do to be greedy. He needed to think carefully about this resource and decide how to use it.

This was quite the harvest, and there were a few more plant spirits outside to be taken care of. In addition, there was this massive mine... Li Hao couldn’t tell how many ores there were. There was probably enough for the rest of his life!

He was rich!

The Black Armor quickly became one with the golden body; Li Hao looked around with anticipation. He rather hoped that those outside would fight for a while longer. None of them would be getting away when the Black Armor was finished!

The young man himself was a bit weak at the moment. His supernatural characters had broken and he’d yet to trace new ones. His physical body was neither weak nor strong, and it didn’t possess that much battle strength by itself. It could withstand some six elements, but not seven elements.

However, he didn’t care.

He kept caressing the stones around him with great excitement. The lake also brought a joyful curve to his lips!