CH 154

Chapter 154 – Soaring Reputation

At night, the summit of Morning Dew Peak was still bright as day. A giant 10,000-year-old pine tree stood tall next to Lu Changge’s Morning Night Hall, emitting a constant brilliant radiance.

Xu Disheng gazed at Morning Night Hall several kilometers off in the distance, then urged the Yin Yang Diagram forward and landed in front of his own palace hall.

Inside the palace hall’s barrier of light, a dozen message jade slips were floating in the air, vibrating. A majority of them had unfamiliar auras surrounding them. They clearly weren’t from people that he was acquainted with.

He opened the barrier of light and looked around at the comfortable, luxurious palace hall that was normally for Dao Foundation stage disciples. Then, after swiping his hand and putting away the dozen or so jade slips, he went inside.

What surprised him the most was that one of the jade slips was from Chu Qing’er, who was previously also cultivating at the Outer Region of the Mingxin Mountain Range, and there was even one from Chu Tianhe from the Eighth Mountain, the Zhuri Mountain Range. They both originally came from the Chu Territory like him.

After the end of the Mingxin Mountain Inner Disciple Tournament, Xu Disheng’s reputation soared and he became a Sea of Qi stage genius considered on par with people like Guan Lu and Kou Zun, and second only to the few people with Psychic Magic Treasures.

A majority of those several people who came from the Chu Territory like him were still rushing around and toiling over a few spirit stones. Some of them were still at the Cleansed Meridians stage and were wasting their lives away in the Outer Region, unable to enter a Peak.

After the news of the tournament spread, Xu Disheng’s status as the 4th place genius in the Sea of Qi division became widely known and he became someone who was showered in admiring gazes wherever he went. These people who sent him messages were trying to get him to extend a helping hand so they could obtain some benefits or protection.

Xu Disheng lightly swiped his hand to toss them all to the side, but part way through, his slender hand suddenly paused.

When he thought back to the generous gifts that Emperor Chu had given him in that storage pouch, he thought it wouldn’t be good to turn a blind eye to Chu Luo. He picked out his jade slip from the pile, then summoned the destruction intent from the Pure Oblivion Water at the tip of his finger and destroyed the rest of the message jade slips.

When he roughly looked through the message jade slip from Chu Luo, he found that there wasn’t a single word requesting protection from him or anything of the sort. Instead, in an extremely respectfully worded manner, he congratulated Xu Disheng for getting 4th place in the tournament and becoming a well-known genius in the sect.

After Chu Luo had arrived at the Outer Region, he found out that Xu Disheng had just finished participating in the Internal Disciple Tournament before coming to the Chu Territory, so his congratulation wasn’t considered late by any means.

After pondering momentarily, Xu Disheng wrote a few sentences in response, then activated the courtyard’s messaging array and tossed out the jade slip. It flew up into the air through the power of the array and shot off into the distance, where it soon disappeared without a trace.

“Xu Disheng of Mingxin Mountain Range’s Morning Dew Peak. The deadline for the sect’s annual mission quota is approaching. Within four months, you are still required to complete 3 sect mission shares, equivalent to 1 large-scale mission, 2 medium-scale missions, or 3 small-scale missions.”

One of the jade slips was sent out by the Mingxin Mountain’s branch of the Affairs Hall. It was a routine reminder sent out to disciples who had entered a Peak that they had to complete their quota of sect missions on time.

The mission share for the large-scale mission that he went on with Jing Xingchen and the others to the Zhaojiang River System hadn’t gone through yet, so he was still considered to have only completed 2 sect mission shares so far, the same amount he had half a year ago.

As soon as the sect mission share for this large-scale mission was registered in the system, then his annual quota of 5 sect mission shares for the year would be fulfilled.

While Xu Disheng was fighting in close quarters with those monsters inside of Yan Wuji’s demon array, he managed to improve his control over that drop of Pure Oblivion Water. Although that drop of Pure Oblivion Water had fused with the Imperial Demon Brush into a single entity and turned into the Magic Treasure which Xu Disheng called ‘Disperse’, he was still unable to demonstrate its full might.

Little did he know, being able to control a drop of Pure Oblivion Water below the Primordial Spirit stage was normally nothing more than wishful thinking. If anyone else tried to do it, the backlash would instantly obliterate their mind and wipe them from the face of the universe without even giving them the chance to reincarnate.

It was only because of the cyan jade flute in his sea of consciousness that he could suppress this nascent Pure Oblivion Water and keep it calm so Xu Disheng could activate it and manipulate it a little bit.

But although he could barely use it, its might was capable of rendering people speechless. Every time Xu Disheng waved Disperse, the energy of the Pure Oblivion Water would concentrate at the tip of the brush and unleash a black brushstroke in its wake. Any time it came into contact with any monster, its entire body would curl up into black gas and disappear.

Only the fully-transformed monsters could resist it slightly. But they couldn’t block the energy of the Pure Oblivion Water head-on or they would also end up with their minds obliterated.

Although fully-transformed monsters were more or less equivalent to a human race Dao Foundation stage cultivator, the monsters in Yan Wuji’s demon array were merely numerous, but actually quite weak. Even if there were fully-transformed monsters, they had lost their intellect and completely relied on their instincts to kill. They couldn’t use any monster spells whatsoever.

Monsters that couldn’t use monster spells were like humans who had lost their Spirit Tools or Magic Treasures. No matter how high their profound qi cultivation was, their combat strength would be very limited. Thus, these fully-transformed monsters in Yan Wuji’s demon array couldn’t match up to the reputation that normal fully-transformed monsters that could use monster spells had. The demon array was strong, but it only relied on numbers to suppress its foes.

“Master, in this time you have taken in quite a bit of Soul Force. I require roughly 7 days to complete my evolution. This time, I should be able to ascend to the rank of a pinnacle top-grade Magic Treasure. During this period, please refrain from using the Soul Suppressing Vestment to confront any enemies,” Little Sky said in his deep voice from within the Soul Suppressing Vestment.

“Alright,” Xu Disheng said. He didn’t say more because the combat potential that the Soul Suppressing Vestment offered him at the moment was extremely limited as it was. It could hardly compare to the Smoky Cloud Screen or the White Lotus Array Flag, much less a pseudo-Psychic Magic Treasure like the Demon Punishing Array Diagram.

The Soul Suppressing Vestment was a Soul Vessel, so it could continue to grow in rank as long as it received enough Soul Force, but then again, its original vessel was only an ordinary Spirit Tool. Although it had the wondrous effects from the Sealing Soul Mantra applied to it, the pace of its growth still wasn’t that great.

There was a scripture within the Sealing Soul Mantra that allowed him to refine a new Soul Vessel. It allowed him to extract the void nucleus of the Soul Vessel from its current vessel and required the use of Soul Force to quickly move it to a new vessel to be re-refined.

This ‘void nucleus’ was the core of the Soul Vessel. While he could do this if he wanted, it caused the energy in the Soul Vessel to drop greatly, and it would take a long time of careful nurturing to restore it back to its previous state.

Seeing that Little Sky had already entered a dormant state, Xu Disheng didn’t bring up this matter.

After seven days were up and he could talk to Little Sky again, he could start going about the matter of re-refining the Soul Vessel. After all, right now he could be considered extremely wealthy. He had recently been making massive gains in rapid succession, so even Xu Disheng didn’t know exactly how many spirit stones and cultivation resources he had on him.

“Invitation letter to the Grand Auction of Wenyuan Mountain’s Splendid Commodity Peak.”

Among the remaining jade slips that still hadn’t been opened, there was one fancy and ornate looking message jade slip that caught Xu Disheng’s eye. When he reached out and took it into his hand, these words appeared before his eyes in a flash of golden scintillating light. It hovered there in the air for a few breaths of time and then slowly transformed into motes of light and dissipated.

Everything else aside, the spectacle that occurred when opening this jade slip was more than doing its job at putting on an extravagant appearance.

“The esteemed Xu Disheng of Mingxin Mountain Range’s Morning Dew Peak – There are still 7 days remaining until the grand auction being held by the Grand Erudition House of Splendid Commodity Peak. We have sent you a special invitation requesting your distinguished presence. We would be very honored to have you attend.”

Although the contents of the jade slip were very brief, the information was shocking.

Wenyuan Mountain’s Splendid Commodity Peak! The Grand Erudition House!

Wenyuan Mountain was where the main branch of Affairs Hall was. The Wenyuan Mountain Range was extremely vast, to the point that two Mingxin Mountain Ranges could fit inside of it.

Splendid Commodity Peak was an extremely large Mountain Peak domain belonging to Grand Erudition Spirit Master. Although Grand Erudition Spirit Master was a Divine Core stage Spirit Master, he was mainly interested in doing business. Under his discreet business management prowess, Splendid Commodity Peak had quietly risen to being the largest marketplace in the Wenyuan Mountain Range.

Many extremely wealthy Spirit Masters with liberal spending habits, and even Primordial Lords had opened up shops on Splendid Commodity Peak. The goods that they refined would be sold firsthand at their shop fronts on Splendid Commodity Peak. The disciples of the Eight Mountains would visit their shops for their reputation. The magnificently prosperous scene on Splendid Commodity Peak was beyond imagination.

The Grand Erudition House was the largest auction business under Grand Erudition Spirit Master’s name. People often said that there was nothing in the Shan Mountain Territory that couldn’t be found there. The grand auction was only held by them once every several years, and each auction would be an extravagant gathering of rare resources and precious treasures, drawing the attention of countless low and middle rank profound cultivators from the Eight Mountains.

For each grand auction, the Grand Erudition House would send out countless gorgeous-looking invitations. These exquisite jade slips would fly out and land in front of the Divine Core stage Spirit Masters, the Dao Foundation stage Peak Masters, and the numerous Sea of Qi stage geniuses of the Eight Mountains.

As a Sea of Qi stage genius of the Mingxin Mountain Range, Xu Disheng had now earned the qualifications to be invited to this grand auction. Due to his unfathomably powerful secret Ghost Dao technique, he had caught the attention of people from other Mountain Ranges.

There was a certain poem that went:

The start of the immortal’s path

Is when their Dao heart is set.

Overturning the universe,

To use heaven and earth as their cauldron.