Chapter 279: Returning with a Haul

Xiao Nanfeng and his army made his way to the second Immortal sect.

The strongest disciple present on the island was only at Spiritsong, and Xiao Nanfeng easily excavated another draconic vein.

Xiao Nanfeng and his army absorbed the draconic vein right in front of this second sect's disciples, then continued to cultivate and break through.

Xiao Nanfeng transformed the draconic aether in his body into pure yang origin qi, which he sent toward the ten suns in his dantian.

The ten suns gave off tremendous quantities of heat. After four hours, Xiao Nanfeng slowly opened his eyes.

"Nanfeng, you haven't broken through to Wingform?" Yu'er exclaimed.

Xiao Nanfeng frowned. "Something's wrong. Although the draconic aether I just absorbed wouldn't have been sufficient to bring me to Wingform, the new pure yang origin qi that I distilled hasn't improved my cultivation one bit."

"Is something wrong with your technique?" Yu'er fretted.

Xiao Nanfeng nodded with a frown. He cultivated Sky of Ten Suns, which he had initially thought to be an incredible technique that would pay off in the long run. It had taken massive quantities of qi to cultivate, and Xiao Nanfeng had been expecting a qualitative improvement in his strength upon reaching Wingform—but now he was stuck! What was going on?

"Hmm?" Xiao Nanfeng suddenly frowned.

He sat cross-legged in meditation as he stepped into his mindscape. The black lotus cursed effigy was writing a message in his mind with black light.

"Senior Black Lotus, do you know what's wrong with my technique?" Xiao Nanfeng asked expectantly.

The black lotus produced more words with black light. "The Divine Emperor sent me a mental transmission that explains why you've reached a bottleneck with your technique."

"Oh?" Xiao Nanfeng seemed surprised.

"It told me that the reason your nascent spirits are unable to hatch, as it were, is because your technique is of particularly high quality. Your nascent spirits have taken on the flame aspect of a three-legged golden crow. There are plenty of cultivators who can gestate a nascent spirit with such properties, but ten at once would be an incredible feat."

"How might I hatch the nascent spirits, then?" Xiao Nanfeng asked, hopeful that the black lotus would have a solution.

"Pure yang origin qi is insufficient. You'll need to supplement it with quintessence of solarfire."

"May I ask what quintessence of solarfire is?"

"There are plenty of techniques all over the world that can produce quintessence of solarfire, but those techniques all simply emulate the solarfire found in reality. True solarfire cannot be produced by ordinary cultivation; it comes from the heart of the sun and represents the source of all flame. There is nothing that true quintessence of solarfire cannot burn."

"But where would I find it?" Xiao Nanfeng asked. That was his top priority.

"Hong Lie and Xiang Pojun have it," the black lotus replied.

"Oh?" Xiao Nanfeng thought back to what he knew of them.

He suddenly remembered that, when Xiang Pojun first arrived at Taiqing Island in an attempt to raid it, not only did his body shine with rainbow light, there was a golden wheel to his back. The same was true of Hong Lie.

"Those golden wheels of light floating behind them—that's quintessence of solarfire?" Xiao Nanfeng asked in surprise.

"That's right. They likely obtained it in the Spirit Emperor's hidden realm."

"Thank you for the information, Senior," Xiao Nanfeng replied.

"There's no need to thank me. I'm just passing on a message. The Divine Emperor bade me tell you," the black lotus wrote.

"I understand," Xiao Nanfeng replied.

Xiao Nanfeng slowly opened his eyes and looked toward his storage ring. Despite the setback, he didn't feel bad. The fact that the Divine Emperor had proactively offered his assistance was a good omen indeed.

"Well, Nanfeng? Do you have a solution to the problem with your technique?" Yu'er asked urgently.

"Don't worry, I have some leads now." Xiao Nanfeng smiled.

"Good!" Yu'er nodded.

She wasn't privy to the details of Xiao Nanfeng's technique, and didn't ask about it further.

This time around, even more Taiqing disciples reached Spiritsong, and hundreds had made it to Ascension. All of Xiao Nanfeng's allies were benefiting tremendously.

"We leave now!" Xiao Nanfeng commanded.

"Understood!" the cultivators replied.

They helped the disciples of the second Immortal sect reactivate their defensive formation before leaving with Xiao Nanfeng. They quickly arrived at a lofty island in the Eastern Sea. There were no Immortal sects here, just a large quantity of Taiqing disciples and soldiers from the Xiao manor.

"Alright, swap your positions now!" Ye Sanshui commanded.

"Understood!" everyone replied.

There were only a limited number of draconic veins, and not everyone would be given the opportunity to continuously absorb them. Rather, the number of opportunities that each fighter possessed was tied to their merit in battle. The group of cultivators behind Xiao Nanfeng had earned the right to absorb two draconic veins. They would now have to return to the Xiao lands and begin guarding the various cities that Xiao Nanfeng now had under his control, so that the spies installed everywhere wouldn't know of Xiao Nanfeng's secret plan.

The Xiao lands comprised over a hundred cities, and Xiao Nanfeng's army was formed of roughly the equivalent of two hundred missing fighters from each city. In the short term, no one would suspect anything.

Thousands of cultivators left for the Xiao lands, while a new group of thousands followed behind Xiao Nanfeng as they prepared to head to the third Immortal sect.

A huge battle broke out in the third Immortal sect, but Croak, Warble, Yu'er, and You Jiu quickly dealt with all resistance.

Once again, they sealed the disciples' cultivation, then excavated another fifteen-hundred-meter-long draconic vein. Everyone eyed it with ardor.

"This time, I won't absorb any draconic aether. All of you should help yourselves," Xiao Nanfeng stated.

The fighters were surprised by Xiao Nanfeng's words. They confirmed his intention once and again before Yu'er finally took the lead. Everyone else swarmed toward the draconic vein after her, easily devouring it.

Everyone was working hard on trying to break through. Meanwhile, Xiao Nanfeng frowned as he plotted how to obtain the quintessence of solarfire that Xiang Pojun possessed.

After four hours, everyone broke through in succession.

A frightening wave of energy was expelled from Ye Sanshui's body, causing howling gales to spawn all around him in a huge commotion.

"Third Uncle, have you reached Wingform?!" Ye Dafu exclaimed.

Ye Sanshui himself couldn't believe it. He had been an Ascension-realm cultivator just a few years ago, but after becoming one of Xiao Nanfeng's subordinates, he had since risen to the upper echelons of strength! He would never have dared to dream of being a Wingform-realm cultivator a few years ago...

"Thank you for your investment in me, King Xiao." Ye Sanshui bowed toward Xiao Nanfeng in gratitude.

"As the commander of my forces, you'll have the largest share of draconic aether. There'll be more to come, too." Xiao Nanfeng grinned.

"Yes, King Xiao!" Ye Sanshui replied in excitement.

Outside the city of Yongding, several Wingform-realm cultivators were skulking around as they stared at Yongding's defensive formation from afar.

"What's going on these past few days? They're only letting people out of Yongding, not in."

"Xiao Nanfeng must be planning something. Has he noticed that we've been sneaking around the outskirts of Yongding?"

"Any who manages to claim Xiao Nanfeng's head will be made a marquis, but it won't be an easy prize to obtain. When we tried to lure him out for a fight individually, not only did we fail, the toad spirits under his command devastated our number with sneak attacks."

"What if we kill more Taiqing disciples and see if Xiao Nanfeng makes a move?"

"If you do so, the Taiqing Immortal Sect will start killing your sect's disciples, too. Hong Lie might even show up at your sect raring for a fight. You try it if you want!"

"Forget it, then."

"The best strategy is for us to cooperate. Otherwise, we'd only end up staring at each other and waiting for someone to make a move."

"Cooperate? Who would Xiao Nanfeng's head go to, then?"

The cultivators stared at each other, none willing to cooperate, when a blue-robed man suddenly flew over.

"Senior Uncle, Xiao Nanfeng attacked Sanyuan Island with an army!" he cried out.

"What? Xiao Nanfeng's raiding us again?" a nearby cultivator exclaimed.

"As usual, I was sending word back to the sect yesterday when I found that the defensive formation around the island seemed to be sealed off. Only when I approached did I learn what had happened. He even excavated the draconic vein on the island!" the blue-robed man reported.

"What? Xiao Nanfeng annihilated my Sanyuan Immortal Sect?!"

"No, Senior Uncle," the blue-robed man quickly replied. "Everyone's fine. No one was even injured."

"What? What nonsense. How could that be? He even excavated the draconic vein!"

The blue-robed man recounted what he had been told in great detail.

"Does he take us for fools? Isn't he afraid that we'll join forces to stop him?!"

"Damn it, Xiao Nanfeng's tricked us! If something has happened to the Sanyuan Immortal Sect, what about our sects?!" The other cultivators blanched, each rushing into the air and flying back across the Eastern Sea to their own sects.

By that time, however, Xiao Nanfeng had returned victorious to Yongding.

They had raided six Immortal sects and excavated six draconic veins.

Not only did Ye Sanshui reach Wingform, so too did his nephew, Ye Dafu. The other cultivators hadn't earned enough merit to take part in absorbing all six draconic veins, but even so, two Taiqing elders had reached Wingform, over thirty cultivators had reached Spiritsong, and more than a thousand had reached Ascension.

The spectral guards had likewise reaped great benefits.

"Nanfeng, what if these six Immortal sects band together against us?" Yu'er asked in concern.

"It doesn't matter how many of them cooperate. We've already grown strong enough not to fear them," Xiao Nanfeng replied, smiling.

"King Xiao's quite right. I've made more improvement in my cultivation than I otherwise would have in decades of hard work. I'm more afraid that the Immortal sects will stop coming—how else would we be able to seize their draconic veins?" one fighter quipped.

"Haha!" Everyone nearby began to laugh.

Meanwhile, cultivators of six major Immortal sects across the Eastern Sea unsealed their disciples' cultivation and seethed in anger at what had happened.

They had failed to claim Xiao Nanfeng's head and suffered grievous losses in the meantime.

However, shockingly, what the six Immortal sects were most concerned about wasn't how to take revenge on Xiao Nanfeng, but whether the Xiang clan would provide them compensation for their losses—whether the Xiang clan would care at all, and whether or not it made sense for them to continue working for the Xiang clan at all.