Chapter 541: On One Additional Condition

"Great, great, great! After wandering all day, I finally ran into some familiar faces. You have no idea—my fellow senior and junior brothers said this scout task requires intelligence, courage, bravery, and wit, and they unanimously nominated me for the job. I've been roaming this wilderness all day. Aside from getting into one fight, I didn't do anything else. I was bored to death, but now that I've seen you all, I feel so much better…"

Chu Liang had no intention of attacking Monk Pushan. While they wanted soul crystals, they weren't desperate enough to go after just this one. Monk Pushan, unguarded and carefree, sat down with the team from the Mount Shu Sect and immediately began delivering a long-winded speech.

Listening to him pour out his grievances after a whole day of boredom, Chu Liang and his companions exchanged glances. They couldn't help but think,

Maybe we should just finish him off, not for the soul crystal, but for some peace and quiet.

Chu Liang seriously suspected that Monk Pushan's teammates from the Buddhist Cloud Monastery had sent him out as the scout simply to free themselves from the torture of keeping him around.

Noticing that Pushan showed no signs of stopping, Chu Liang quickly interrupted, "Have you been in this area all day?"

"No, we came from the eastern coast and didn't encounter many people along the way," Monk Pushan replied gloomily. "When we passed Misty Waters City, we saw people fleeing, but they didn't escape before being slaughtered by Penglai. It was a brutal scene. By the time we arrived in this area, the fight was over, and we ran into the team from the Earthfire Sect…"

"Earthfire Sect?" Chu Liang recalled the dark horse from the Great Selection of the Four Seas, "Did you beat them?"

"No, we just fought a little, but when we saw that they had more people, we retreated," Pushan said as he shook his head.

After listening to Pushan, Chu Liang realized that the Earthfire Sect and the Five Poisons Sect were at odds with each other, despite both being part of the Chancellor's Sixteen-Faction Alliance. Each had formed its own alliance within the illusory realm.

The Five Poisons Sect was cunning and elusive, making them difficult to defend against. They had formed alliances with the Divine Movement Sect and the Mountain-Shifting Sect.

The Earthfire Sect specialized in fire techniques and had allied with the Puppetry Sect and the Kuimu Sect to hunt for soul crystals across the plain.

The alliance of these three forces was quite formidable.

In truth, the Five Poisons Sect was not weak; they were simply unfortunate to encounter someone like Chu Liang—an existence impervious to poison. It was like an animal meeting its primary predator. As long as the poison wasn't something particularly unique that the Poison-Expulsion Whip couldn't cure, it would be nothing more than harmless probiotics to the Young Hero with the Divine Whip. What could they possibly do about that?

If it had been anyone else from the Divine Nine or the Terrestrial Ten, the Five Poisons Sect likely wouldn't have been so easily defeated. But fate had other plans.

The legacy of the Earthfire Sect was not particularly powerful. The only reason this team was strong was that there was a pair of twin brothers in this generation of disciples, both of whom possessed the rare Fire Spirit Meridian constitution.

The Fire Spirit Meridian enabled one to cultivate fire techniques with half the effort and double the results. While it ranked below the Divine Fire Spirit, it was not bound by any specific bloodline, making it one of the strongest innate talents in the world.

Because the two brothers had each won a match on the arena stage, their team was able to win the one from the Imperial Supervisory Bureau. If these brothers worked together, their powers would complement each other, unleashing an even more extraordinary force.

"Three sects…" Chu Liang pondered. "Do you know their exact location?"

"I only know the general area, but I'm not sure if they've moved," Monk Pushan replied, looking at him. "You plan to take them on? It won't be easy."

"Why don't we form an alliance and take down these three sects together?" Chu Liang suggested.

"Oh?" Pushan raised an eyebrow. "You have a plan?"

"They may be strong, but we can outsmart them," Chu Liang explained. "I'll act like I'm scouting and let them spot me, then I'll lure them into a valley. You can wait there and ambush them. Just launch a sudden attack to catch them off guard."

"Great idea," Pushan nodded. "It's got to be you. How do you come up with so many plans off the top of your head?"

"Maybe it's because I've been through a lot..." Chu Liang chuckled.

"I'll head back to find my fellow brothers Pucheng, Puyou, and Pujing to ask for their opinions," Pushan said. "I'm sure they'll agree with a little persuasion."

"Of course," Chu Liang responded.

With your "little" persuasion, who wouldn't agree?

…

Compared to the commotion at the coast and mountain peaks, Misty Waters City was eerily quiet under the night sky.

The truth was that the Penglai Supreme Sect team's overwhelming presence had scared everyone away. Many teams had dared to fight for the city during the day, but they soon realized that they couldn't even escape.

Since then, no one had dared to come near Misty Waters City.

This huge city was now empty.

Under the bright moon, Yang Yuhu guided a richly dressed young man to the tallest pavilion in Misty Waters City.

"Big Brother, City Lord Junior Huyan wants to see you," Yang Yuhu announced, leading him to the spot.

The young man was none other than Huyan Bin, the City Lord Junior of Taotie City.

While everyone else avoided Misty Waters City, the team from Taotie City went the opposite direction. If not for Huyan Bin's connection with Yang Yuhu, he and his other three team members would have surely been torn apart by Qi Lin'er.

"City Lord Junior?" Yang Shenlong, who had been meditating in his room, slowly opened his eyes and stepped out.

"Young Hero Yang! I've heard a lot about you, but we've never actually met. It's great to finally meet you today," Huyan Bin said with a smile.

"City Lord Junior, you're too courteous," Yang Shenlong said with a slight nod, inviting him inside.

Since the visitor had come to negotiate, Yang Shenlong wasn't in a hurry to turn him into a soul crystal. With a moment's thought, he quickly deduced the reason behind the team from Taotie City's visit.

"Taotie City would like to form an alliance with the Penglai Supreme Sect," Huyan Bin said with a smile. "What do you think, Young Hero Yang?"

In response, Yang Shenlong asked, "What's the price?"

This wasn't the first time Taotie City had taken such an approach. Whenever their own disciples lacked sufficient cultivation power, they sought alliances with stronger forces, effectively purchasing soul crystals with their wealth.

This kind of behavior warranted scrutiny. While it didn't violate the fundamental rule of forming alliances in this illusory realm, it did involve certain external factors.

After extensive discussions among the sects in the Divine Nine and the Terrestrial Ten, they concluded that money was indeed a form of strength. As long as the alliance was established for legitimate reasons to secure victory, the specific methods of forming that alliance shouldn't be overly scrutinized.

The people who set the rules still wanted to give the disciples within the illusory realm with as much freedom as possible.

After all, Taotie City wasn't asking other sects to give up their chances to advance to the next round. Instead, they wanted to team up with stronger groups and have those groups share their extra soul crystals. Plus, buying soul crystals usually costs a lot, making it hard for others to do the same.

"The usual price of two thousand Vermillion-Bird coins per soul crystal," Huyan Bin said directly.

"Five thousand," Yang Shenlong replied flatly.

"This..." Huyan Bin's expression tightened.

To secure a spot in the top ten, he would need at least thirty to forty soul crystals. At two thousand Vermillion-Bird coins per crystal, it was already expensive. If it were five thousand per crystal, the cost would be at least a hundred thousand coins.

But thinking about the importance of his mission, Huyan Bin gritted his teeth and said, "Fine, five thousand per crystal, but I want to add one condition... You have to eliminate Mount Shu Sect in this round!"

GLTD Alternate Universe's Thoughts

Translator: GT