Chapter 1010: Finding Topsoil Spirit (1)

Somewhere amid the boundless sea.

One big loophole remained with Su Yu's plan.

Topsoil Spirit!

His biggest regret was his failure to capture Topsoil Spirit. This was the biggest loophole in his plan. If Topsoil Spirit showed up and exposed him, he would be in grave danger. Thus, while hiding from all the people looking for him, Su Yu started thinking of solutions for this issue.

He didn't have the courage to go ahead with the next step of his plan before dealing with this loophole. Of course, since everyone knew that Topsoil Spirit was Tianduo's opponent, they might doubt his words. But he only needed to claim that Tianduo was Su Yu. That would be enough to get those people investigating.

"Topsoil Spirit!"

Su Yu cursed inwardly. How troublesome. Great wealth was just ahead of him. But he didn't dare to reach out and grab it.

"This is so annoying."

He kept shaking his head. Even before starting the plan, he was already aware of this loophole. But he had no choice since he couldn't find Topsoil Spirit. That fellow seemed to have vanished completely.

Suddenly, he sensed something.

Before he could move away, a loud voice rang out behind him, "Tianduo, where's Topsoil Spirit?"

A massive figure was rapidly moving toward him, creating violent rumbles with every step he took.

Shi Zun.

Shi Zhun was surprisingly fast. He had been on the hunt for Topsoil Spirit, but instead, he found Tianduo. When he noticed that, he roared furiously, "Where is he? Damn it! Why is he so fast? Just two days ago, he played a trick on me. I thought he was hiding in Grandstar City, but he had actually left the island. And now, he is missing again!"

"..."

At first, Su Yu wanted to run away. But hearing that, he asked, "Shi Zun, you fought Topsoil Spirit recently?"

Shi Zun grumbled, "That shameless scoundrel was too fast. I managed to force him into the ancient city, but he actually escaped. How did he do that?"

Shi Zun was very puzzled. The gates of ancient cities were located in fixed locations. Did he somehow miss Topsoil Spirit when that fellow escaped through the gate? That was possible.

He furiously said, "That shameless bastard has finally revealed his ambition. He's trying to fuse the five elements. No wonder he tried to snatch my stone core previously. He must be trying to perfect his five elemental core."

Wow. Su Yu finally understood why Shi Zun harbored so much hostility toward Topsoil Spirit. But he had to admit that Topsoil Spirit was indeed quite an ambitious one.

Perhaps his five elemental core was incomplete. As a remedy, he tried snatching Shi Zun's stone core. Strictly speaking, the stone golem race could be considered a part of the earth elemental race. According to rumors, this was a race of mutated earth elementals. But Su Yu was unclear if the rumors were true.

The stone golem race was very strong despite not being an ancient race. It was also a top 100 race with at least one Invincible.

Instantly, Su Yu latched onto several pieces of information. Firstly, Topsoil Spirit had fought Shi Zun previously. Secondly, Topsoil Spirit might still be hiding in the sole ancient city on Ninestar Island.

Thirdly, Shi Zun was here to look for Topsoil Spirit. He did not care about Tianduo, and it was likely that he didn't even care about the Invincible corpse. Or perhaps he simply wasn't sure he could defeat Tianduo so he had been holding back.

Topsoil Spirit was hiding in an ancient city.

Su Yu's eyes flickered as he pretended to be indifferent, "Yeah, that fellow is a very annoying opponent. You might not be his match."

Shi Zun said, "I counter him. Why should I be afraid of him? As an earth elemental, his strongest earth movement, earth defense, and earth offense are all ineffective against me. Even after fusing the five elements, his main element will still be earth. I don't need to fear him."

There was no reason for him to fear Topsoil Spirit.

It wasn't like he hadn't fought Topsoil Spirit without holding back several times before. Topsoil Spirit might be strong, but he was immune to most of Topsoil Spirit's tricks. Instead, Topsoil Spirit was the one running away from him each time they met. In short, his race was the bane of the earth elemental race. That would not change even with the fusion of five elements.

After looking around, Shi Zun spoke with disappointment, "Tianduo, remember to notify me when you see him. I'll continue my search. He won't be able to escape me."

After saying that, Shi Zun turned around to leave.

Seeing that, Su Yu hurriedly said, "Shi Zun, were you nearby when I fought him earlier?"

"What about it?"

Shi Zun complained, "You were too useless. Why did you let him off for a dumb ancient corpse? If you managed to keep him busy a tiny bit longer, I would have been able to arrive in time and help you kill him. Won't the reward for killing Topsoil Spirit be better than some useless ancient items? What a fool!"

Leaving those words behind, Shi Zun left.

These were his unspoken words, proven through his actions:

I saw the ancient corpse, but I don't care. Your daddy only wants to kill Topsoil Spirit!

For him, nothing was as important as killing Topsoil Spirit.

Su Yu was speechless.

He had thought that Shi Zun had not seen the corpse. But that was not the case. He simply didn't care about anything except killing Topsoil Spirit. Was this...true love? Well, this wasn't a bad thing.

Su Yu did not want to attract more trouble than necessary. But at that moment, he thought of something else. It would seem like his fate would be entangled with yet another ancient city. Topsoil Spirit could very well be hiding in an ancient city.

If that was the case, he had to enter the ancient city as well. Getting rid of that fellow was still his best course of action.

Even if he couldn't kill that fellow, he had to keep that fellow trapped in the city. It was likely that Topsoil Spirit did not have any index copies on him. It wouldn't be easy for him to contact anyone as long as he remained trapped.

Su Yu only needed to keep Topsoil Spirit in an ancient building during the duration of the scam, making it impossible for that fellow to send any messages out. At that thought, he took out a black robe and covered his entire body with it. This would help with his concealment for now.

Suddenly, a voice transmission talisman within Tianduo's storage ring started vibrating. Su Yu took the talisman out and frowned. This would be quite troublesome. To use each voice transmission talisman, one needed to know its frequency. Without the frequency, one wouldn't be able to send any messages out of it.

Fortunately, he did not need the frequency to read the incoming messages. And there was still no need for him to contact anyone through this talisman. After taking a look, he noted that the quality of a voice transmission talisman manufactured by the devils was actually quite high.

It had the ability to store all previous messages, allowing him to leisurely browse all of Tianduo's messages. Soon, he noticed a message sent by someone called Dawo.

Dawo?

Su Yu recognized that name. This was the same devil he had seen fighting a dragon when he first reached Ninestar City. Dawo, an original devil expert at the seventh-stage Sunmoon Realm.

"Tianduo, where are you?"

That was Dawo's message.

Su Yu couldn't send a reply. That would require the frequencies of both this talisman and the talisman of the recipient. This was a built-in security service to prevent an enemy using the talisman of those they kill to entrap the allies of the dead. And that was not information Su Yu had.

Voice transmission talismans were very convenient to use. But in the past, they had been used to lay out all sorts of traps for the allies of the original owners of these talismans. Because of that, the security of modern voice transmission talismans had improved significantly.

"Dawo..."

Su Yu decided to ignore Dawo. But at that moment, the talisman shook once again.

𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"Tianduo, return to Ninestar City as soon as possible. None of us intend to snatch your discovery, but you're advised to hand it over to the higher-ups. You're not strong enough to monopolize the discovery."

Mo Duona!

Su Yu was quite surprised to see the name of the sender. He had thought that Mo Duona and Tianduo were not on speaking terms.

With a frown, Su Yu said to the little furball, "Try to get the frequencies from Tianduo. If you manage to do that, I'll give you something yummy."

If he could reply through Tianduo's talisman, his disguise would be even more believable. Sure, it would be perfectly logical for Tianduo to ignore all messages after discovering something so valuable. But it was much better for Su Yu to further improve this disguise.

Clad in the same black robe, Su Yu started moving toward the ancient city while waiting for the little furball to get the frequencies from Tianduo. Clearly, the devils were attaching a rather heavy importance to this discovery. Even Mo Duona was trying to persuade him to hand the discovery over.

Since Su Yu was not replying, a second message came from Dawo.

"Tianduo, a lot of experts are looking for you. You're in a dangerous situation. Come back and we will protect you. It doesn't matter if you want to sell it to the higher-ups or offer it to Devil King Lade. Either option is much better than having your discovery snatched by someone else."

Devil King Lade was Tianduo's ancestor. Either of the two options was acceptable for the devils. They only cared about keeping the discovery within the devil race. That would be a true loss for them.

An ancient Invincible...or to be precise, a suspected ancient Invincible corpse...This might be the sole ancient Invincible corpse in existence. Even if that corpse was not an Invincible, it would be a pseudo Invincible.

As the first-ever discovered corpse of an ancient Invincible, its research value was unimaginably high. Furthermore, it came with an ancient character, ancient heaven weapon, and some other ancient items. This corpse might even contain some ancient secrets. In short, it was extremely important.

Thus, everyone was looking for Tianduo. Some people were also looking for all the people who were present during the battle. And some were in search of the individual who had found the ancient arrows.

Even the site where the fake ancient spatial pocket had appeared was under the investigation of numerous experts.

***

Deep underwater.

Numerous experts had arrived at the previous battleground.

Many of them were Sunmoons.

Among the Sunmoons was a masked individual in white and an expert shrouded in dazzling gold. One was a member of the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion while the other was a member of the Allheaven Treasure House.

The whirlpool generated by the collapsed spatial pocket could no longer be seen, but some spatial undulations could still be felt in the area.

After spending some time investigating the place, an expert said, "There are traces of shattered space here, but perhaps the spatial pocket was too old. Its effects did not spread too far."

With a casual swing of his hand, his immediate surroundings became completely devoid of water while a badly damaged armor appeared in his hand.

He studied the damaged armor for a bit and said, "This is an ancient armor. It should originally be at the earth grade, but it must have been ruined during the spatial collapse."

He sighed, "Time knows no mercy. Even inside a perfectly sealed spatial pocket, an earth weapon can not avoid destruction without anyone taking care of it."

A different expert spoke, "I can sense some death qi here. That ancient expert must have been undergoing the transformation into a death spirit, but the process was stopped before it could reach completion..."

A devil spoke up in astonishment, "So the ancient experts had a way to stop the transformation? The Devil Emperor once speculated that the ancient Invincibles might have all been transformed into death spirits, including the corpses of the ones who had perished. Was the corpse found here someone who was halfway through the transformation?"

Why had all the Invincible corpses gone missing? Or to be precise, why had the myriad races failed to find even a single Invincible corpse throughout the years? According to some of the oldest living cultivators, the ancient Invincibles might have all been transformed into death spirits. Not all of the ancient Invincibles could be found in the Death Realm, but a small number of ancient Invincibles had actually been discovered in their death spirit forms there.

People like Devil Emperor and Divine Emperor had actually entered the Death Realm several times for the purpose of reviving some of their dead ancient Invincibles.