Chapter 1056: Ancient City's Calm (2)

Inside the city.

After receiving the message from outside the city, Zhan Wushuang took the ancient weapon out. There were over a hundred stripes on it.

Staring at the stripes, Zhan Wushuang's eyes flickered. He really wanted to believe that this was a real ancient heaven weapon. A middle-tier heaven weapon. That way, their actual loss would be slightly smaller.

But what he heard had thrown him into despair.

White One was in the middle of communicating with the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion. Shortly after, he said, "Zhan Wushuang, you can try to shake the stripes with your source qi."

Zhan Wushuang frowned and said, "What if this is an actual ancient weapon? That might break it."

Beside him, Xuan Wuji sneered, "You're still hoping that it's real? Would Su Yu really give you an ancient heaven weapon? Stop dreaming."

Zhan Wushuang was unwilling to give up. This was his final attempt to resist the truth. But he didn't know what to say. Yes. Would Su Yu give this weapon to him if it was the real deal? But...the alternative was too hard to accept.

He gnashed his teeth and released his source qi. Then...stripe after stripe broke apart with a crack. Those were the fake stripes added by Su Yu. The original ancient trident only had ninety-seven real stripes.

And sure enough, only ninety-seven stripes were left by the time Zhan Wushuang was done. Well, it wasn't that bad. This was still an ancient earth weapon. For an ancient earth weapon in poor condition, a useless corpse, and a character, Su Yu had gotten 2,300 strands of heavenearth profound light from them.

The ransom to leave the city was set according to their numbers. There were twenty-two Sunmoons and sixteen geniuses trapped in the city. Three of them were divines. Their share of the ransom was four hundred strands. In a way, they had paid 2,700 strands in total for the corpse, the weapon, and the character.

Furthermore, they had all suffered considerable death qi erosion in the city. After leaving, they had to exhaust even more resources for their recovery.

The divines were the biggest losers of this incident. The thought of that was driving Zhan Wushuang mad. He was the main representative of the divines for the auction. But he had performed terribly.

The incident had even caused the white-haired divine king to suffer a grave injury. On top of that, more divine experts were forced to set off and negotiate on their behalf. One could say that all the geniuses present had suffered considerably during this incident, but Zhan Wushuang was the one who had suffered the most.

He had the urge to crush the weapon in his hand. He was in a terrible mood.

***

As Zhan Wushuang wallowed in grief and fury, two and a half days passed.

Su Yu had finally completed his forty-eighth body forging. It had required even more resources and time than the previous body forgings.

After the 30th forging, the subsequent 18 forgings had taken him 340 strands to complete. The latest 48th forging had consumed a total of 32 strands. It was getting more and more expensive for him to cultivate.

He was left with only 160 strands. At this rate, he would probably have enough to complete four more forgings instead of the five he had originally estimated. That would leave him at fifty-two forgings.

For the remaining twenty forgings, he would need at least forty strands per forging. The number would continue increasing, potentially requiring at least a thousand more strands for a full completion.

The total value of what he earned from the scam was enough to reach completion, but most of the payment was made through other treasures of equal value instead of heavenly profound light.

"For the ransom, at least one thousand of the five thousand strands should be in the form of heavenearth profound light, right?"

That should be the case. Thus, he would have enough to complete his body forging. The bigger issue was his nine transformations. He needed nine transformative treasures to assist with that. So far, 144 of his acupoints had completed the first transformation through Xia Longwu's saber qi. But what about the rest of his acupoints?

"The five elemental fruits should work as well. These fruits are treasures. Will they be enough to transform the rest of my acupoints?"

Su Yu was hoping that he would receive more transformative treasures instead. That way, he would be able to complete his first transformation properly. As for the Mountainsea Realm, he would worry about that later.

He had no idea how strong he would be by the time he was a ninth-stage Cloudbreach. All in all, he had profited massively from this. What he earned here would support his cultivation for a very long time. Without these transactions, a genius like him would not be able to support his own cultivation unless he received the help of an Invincible.

Take people like Mo Duona and the other geniuses. Which of them was without the support of an Invincible? Each genius required massive amount of resources to reach their potential. Sure, they had the potential to reach an incredible heights just by cultivating normally. But that would take a much longer time.

What was the point of potential if one reached old age before achieving one's potential? For most geniuses, they would use resources to fuel their growth until a point where they were stuck, such as the ninth-stage Sunmoon Realm. That would be the point to finally settle down and accumulate a strong foundation in preparation for dao affirmation. As far as a genius was concerned, the usage of resources was only for the sake of saving time.

Su Yu was an extreme example of such an individual. Through countless resources, he grew at an unprecedented rate. In just a year, he had grown from a Source Opening student to someone capable of killing seventh-stage Mountainseas.

A seventh-stage Mountainsea might have taken a hundred years to reach that level. Su Yu had merely taken a year. This was the difference between a genius and a regular cultivator.

"This is acceptable."

Su Yu exhaled in relief. For now, he only prioritized his body forging. He would think about the next stage after completing his body forging. Just completing his body forging would grant him an unimaginable level of strength.

The strength of acupoints did not matter for the Invincible Realm. But it mattered for everyone below that realm. Even Sunmoons would need to reach the level of a Pseudo Invincible before they could touch upon the concepts of time and tri-life bodies. Prior to that, brute strength was still very useful.

Even if he couldn't defeat Invincibles, Su Yu aimed to quickly reach a level where he could punch a ninth-stage Sunmoon to death with one hit. Only then would his safety be somewhat assured out here.

And if he could become a mayor on top of that, he would gain the strength to contend against Invincibles while inside an ancient city. And that would be enough for him. That was enough for him to rule over a large region. He would be able to act domineeringly while inside the city like the dark devil dragon who was the mayor of this city.

Unlike the cowardly dark devil dragon, he could disregard even Invincibles while inside his city.

***

Su Yu dragged the grumpy furball out.

Rolling his eyes, he said, "Open your eyes. Stop pretending to be asleep. Go to unit 180 and collect the payment. I'll get a death spirit to follow you. If everything is fine, don't move. If you notice anything wrong, just beat the death spirit to death and extend the duration of the city lockdown."

The little furball spoke with a pitiful voice, "Loophole! If I kill the death spirit, they will kill me!"

The furball was making his refusal clear.

There was no way those death spirits would spare him.

"Riches can only be sought amid danger. How can you succeed without taking risks? I have been the one doing the risk-taking all this time while you have been sleeping. Is this fair? Don't forget that you've eaten a lot of my stuff as well. Why are you being so lazy when I'm asking you to do such an easy job?"

"You can send your clone!"

The little furball was not stupid. He knew that Yummy could use character clones as well.

Su Yu rolled his eyes, "Are you dumb? They can track me by capturing my character. But they can't do the same capturing you. I'll switch to a different building right after you leave. That way, you won't be able to leak my location even if you're captured!"

"..."

That logic was too strong for the little furball to argue against.

He gloomily asked, "Must it be me?"

"Are you going or not?" Su Yu said, "If you're not going, just walk away. We will part ways here. Apart from eating, what else can you do? I've been feeding you so that you can help me! I'm not feeding you for charity!"

"I'm a ball. I don't walk..."

Boom!

Su Yu sent the furball flying with a slap. Holy shit! This fellow had learned to talk back!

Ball his ass!

He would not feed someone who was too lazy to work!

Su Yu had been feeding this little fellow so that it could help him, but that fellow had been quite useless as of late. The little fellow couldn't defeat anyone, nor could he kill anyone. Even when he was only asked to do a little errand, he had to argue endlessly.

The furball slowly slid down the wall, indifferent to the slap. Inwardly, he grumbled that Yummy better not regret this! He would do it. But first, he would feast to his heart's content with the stuff in the ring. Upon his return, he would insist that the leftover amount was what he received in the first place.

Wow! That was such a smart plan! What was the human term for this? Tax! Right. He would tax Yummy for his service.

He stopped arguing and opened the door himself. With a flicker, he vanished into thin air. Due to the unique nature of his body, he was able to move and hide like a character. At times, Su Yu would even suspect that this fellow was actually a character. A devour character.

***

At the same time, Mo Duona was placing down a storage ring in front of unit 180.

After pulling back for some distance, he shouted, "Su Yu, the payment is here. The gates will reopen soon. We hope you can stick to your words or we will have no choice but ensure you suffer as much as us.."

"Go further away."

"..."

A young and tender voice rang out, alarming the experts hidden in the surroundings. What was going on? Who was that? Was this not Su Yu? Apart from them, was there someone else who was still alive in the city?

Right, Topsoil Spirit was still in the city as well. But there was no helping that. Not even the five elemental race could do anything about that. They judged that the city would not be sealed again after this. They could simply return for him at a later date.

The little furball yelled, "You! The bad guy with a white mask! Go away! Or else, I won't collect the payment. And Su Yu won't let you go! When the time is up, he'll start killing death spirits!"

Not far away, White One's eyes flickered. What was that? He looked in a certain direction. As his eyes shone, a faintly discernible silhouette appeared. A ball?

What was that?

A ball?

Was that a living being?

White One couldn't think of anything. He started drawing the outline of that ball on his index copy. Was that fellow telling him to leave to prevent him from capturing that fellow's aura?

Was this a young genius as well? What race was this person from? Why had he never seen this person before?