CH 232

A while later, Lu Ye put away the Sacred Pact, and an invisible yet almighty power descended on Feng Yue.

“Wipe your Battlefield Imprint,” Lu Ye instructed.

The order snapped Feng Yue out of her depression. “Yes!”

A moment later, the red light on the back of Feng Yue’s hand disappeared and scattered into nothing. It was the sign that the Battlefield Imprint had been removed.

Lu Ye then produced his Legate’s engraved block, blew air at it, and beckoned Feng Yue to come closer. Then, he declared, “The Heavens as my witness, I am recruiting independent cultivator Feng Yue as an initiate of the Crimson Blood Sect!”

He stamped the block on the back of Feng Yue’s hand, causing a burst of blue light and Feng Yue to look at him with gratitude. Although she had lost her position, it was still better than losing her life.

“Now go donate four thousand Contribution Points.”

“What? R-right,” Feng Yue blurted before jogging up to the Divine Opportunity Column, heart aching about the loss she was about to incur in a few seconds. Normally, it was impossible for a Seventh-Order cultivator to gather this many Contribution Points, but she was the Legate of Clan Feng. Naturally, she had every opportunity to “steal” some Sect Contribution Points for herself. The method she used was the same as Lu Ye when he had paid Hua Ci and himself 10% of the total Sect Contribution Points in the Divine Opportunity Column after returning from the Chess Sea, but unlike them she did not deserve her four thousand Sect Contribution Points.

This was the main reason Lu Ye ultimately decided to accept her as an initiate of the Crimson Blood Sect. It was the price of Feng Yue’s life. 

He might not be able to obtain a satisfactory amount of ransom from Clan Feng, but four thousand Contribution Points was not a bad consolation prize. Why else would he have gone through with the trouble of kidnapping her? Some sicko might kidnap a woman purely for the sake of eye candy, but if he really wanted eye candy, all he needed to do was to look at Hua Ci.

After Feng Yue was done donating her Contribution Points, she returned to Lu Ye and reported in a sweet voice, “It is done, senior brother.”

Lu Ye shot her a look before declaring, “Feng Yue, Initiate of the Crimson Blood Sect, has committed the offense of disrespecting her sect. The Heavens as my witness, I, the Legate of the Crimson Blood Sect, will now strip her of her position!”

“?” For a moment, Feng Yue could only stare at Lu Ye in shock. Then, she she felt the Battlefield Imprint that appeared on the back of her hand less than a minute ago vanishing into a smattering of light.

She could hardly believe it, but Lu Ye had screwed her over right in front of her. What offense did she even commit? Did he have something against being called a senior brother? Did she not inject enough warmth to her voice or something?

It was only then she realized that the reason he made her an initiate was because it was the easiest way for him to take her Contribution Points. Once he had squeezed her for all she was worth, he had removed her without any hesitation whatsoever. And now…

Feeling a little faint, she stumbled backward and said in a sobbing voice, “Are you going to kill me now?”

Lu Ye replied without any shame whatsoever, “Of course not! Regardless of past offenses, you did donate four thousand Contribution Points to the sect, not to mention that I generally avoid killing women unless it’s necessary. Yeah, my earlier threats were just an act. Anyway, you’re free to stay or leave as you wish. It’s none of my business any longer. Goodbye!”

Having said that, he walked to the Divine Opportunity Column and teleported back to the headquarters without even looking back. A few seconds later, the shell-shocked woman burst into tears.

I’ve lost everything…

From the beginning, Lu Ye had no plans to accept Feng Yue into the sect, not even as an associate. It was because she was the former Legate of Clan Feng. He could kidnap her or kill her, but he could never accept her as a member of the sect.

Also, it was one of the unwritten rules Grand Sky Coalition and Thousand Demon Ridge had obeyed since time immemorial. To break the rule was to encourage all captured medicine cultivators to join the enemy to preserve their lives, and neither faction was willing to start such a precedent.

Since the Sacred Pact ensured that Feng Yue could not threaten the Crimson Blood Sect in any way, there was no need to keep an eye on her. If she left, then that was it. If she stayed, and Thousand Demon Ridge were to discover her whereabouts, they could explain it off as the Crimson Blood Sect and Clan Feng were still negotiating the sum of her ransom. It wouldn’t even be a lie. The Crimson Blood Sect was more than willing to see Feng Yue off. Clan Feng was the insincere party who wasn’t willing to cough up a reasonable sum for her.

Lu Ye was fairly certain that Feng Yue would stay. After all, Clan Feng was looking for her. To leave the Outpost was the same as committing suicide. And if she did stay, it meant that the Crimson Blood Sect had picked up a bondless medicine cultivator free of charge. Now wasn’t that something?

The Insectoid Invasion had just passed, so the Spirit Creek Battlefield should be peaceful for the foreseeable future. There was also the fact that their Thousand Demon Ridge neighbors, the Redoubt of Wrath and Clan Feng had lost the ability to do anything against the Crimson Blood Sect. Now was the time to take over the leylines nearby.

He didn’t need to worry about this though. Hua Ci would take care of it.

In the meantime, Lu Ye planned to visit Lady Yun and study the Way of Glyphs some more. If he could learn how to break wards then all the better.

Having tasted the sweetness of conquering an Outpost, Lu Ye wanted nothing more than to repeat the feat again and again. While killing an enemy cultivator would earn him Contribution Points all the same, it wasn’t even close to what conquering an Outpost would pay.

That was why he needed to learn how to break wards. If he could breach a Grand Defensive Ward, then there was no Outpost in the world that was safe from him!

After he returned to the headquarters, he immediately summoned Amber to his side and made a beeline for the Summit of Clarity. 

He had completed Lady Yun’s exercises as per her requirements. While he still couldn’t successfully construct the two useless numbered Glyphs one hundred percent of the time, it was more of a matter of experience than skill. Given enough time, he would eventually reach a level of proficiency where his success rate was one hundred percent.

After he told Lady Yun the reason for his visit, the woman burst into a chuckle before clarifying, “You want to know how to breach a Grand Defensive Ward?”

“Yes, madam.”

She shook her head and said, “You have a long, long way to go before you can get to that level. For starters, you need to know how to create a Ward first before you can think about breaching it. Do you?”

“No, but I’m willing to learn.”

Lady Yun thought for a moment before saying, “While it isn’t normal for someone at your current level to learn about such things, you possess abnormal talent and the inheritance of a Glyphweaver. I suppose it’s okay to speed up your education. Very well. I will test you to see if you are worthy.”

She raised her hand and caused several books to stack up in front of Lu Ye.

“You have half a day to finish reading these books.”

Lady Yun left the room, and Lu Ye began his reading immediately.

He had received many books from Lady Yun before this, and they were all about the fundamentals of Glyphs. These ones were clearly different, however. Not only were they advanced books—books that talked about the practical applications of Glyphs to be exact—they were all about how to disassemble a Glyph.

A Glyphweaver could combine primary elements to construct a Glyph. Naturally, it was possible to do the opposite. One of the ways to breach a ward was to destroy the Glyphs they were made of. After all, all wards were created from from a combination of Glyphs. If the core Glyphs controlling the ward were destroyed, then the ward would disappear as a matter of course.

The foundations he learned came in handy immediately. He would never have been able to make heads or tails of the books without them.

He was wholly absorbed in the books in no time. Once in a while, he would run into a particularly insightful passage and experience a eureka moment. He found answers to many of the questions that puzzled him as well. To say that it was an enlightening experience would be an understatement!

He just barely finished the books when his half a day was up. Lady Yun returned to the library and produced a ten inch long crystal tablet with Spirit Stones embedded around it.

There was a surge of Spiritual Power, and a Glyph immediately appeared on the tablet.

Glyphs created this way would disappear quickly without a constant supply of Spiritual Power. That was why Spirit Stones had been embedded around the crystal tablet.

“Are you ready? Good. Your task is to disassemble the Glyph on this tablet!” Lady Yun said while passing it to Lu Ye.

Lu Ye accepted the tablet solemnly before channeling his Spiritual Power into the Glyph. To disassemble a Glyph, one had to first figure out its structure. It was the most fundamental step of disassembling a Glyph. If he could not even figure out how many Yin elements and Yang elements existed in the Glyph, then his dreams of disassembling a Glyph was nothing but that, a dream.

The way to disassemble the Glyph was to construct a inverse-Glyph that was made up of opposing primary elements. If he was successful, then the two Glyphs would cancel each other out.

Lu Ye had learned how to analyze Glyphs before this, so it he quickly figured out the Glyph’s Yin and Yang elements. Without further ado, he channeled his Spiritual Power and began the disassembly process.

As expected, he ran into problems in no time. The Glyph on the crystal tablet suddenly fell into disarray before exploding in a burst of Spiritual Power. His first attempt ended in failure.

Lady Yun took back the crystal tablet and reconstructed the Glyph. Then, she returned it to Lu Ye to restart the disassembly process.

He failed again and again. Lady Yun had to reconstruct the Glyph every time he screwed up, but his teacher did not look impatient in the slightest.

Time passed slowly. His progress wasn’t quick, but Lu Ye did not feel impatient. He learned from his failures and tirelessly sought for the keys to disassemble a Glyph.

Lady Yun thought that he was extremely talented in the Way of Glyphs, but the truth was a little more complicated than that. It was thanks to the Tree of Glyphs he was able to do what he did.

Each time a Glyph appeared on the Tree of Glyphs, he would know everything about it as if he had he had invented it from scratch. More often that not, the knowledge he learned from that particular Glyph carried over to other Glyphs as well. But of course, the ability to creatively apply that knowledge to other Glyphs was all his.

Six hours passed, but Lu Ye only managed to disassemble less than twenty percent of the Glyph. At this rate, it would take him several days and a bit of luck to disassemble the Glyph completely.

In reality, that was not how things went. Two hours passed, and Lu Ye’s speed suddenly improved drastically. He was able to disassemble eighty percent of the Glyph before failing!

It was because he had finally found some of the keys to disassemble a Glyph from his failures.

Another two hours passed, and he finally succeeded in disassembling the Glyph!

Lady Yun nodded approvingly. “Not bad. You definitely learned something from the books I gave you. It’s already late though, so we’ll resume your lesson tomorrow.”

“Yes, madam!”

Lu Ye got up and received another few books  from Lady Yun. It was only then he returned to the Summit of Fortitude on Amber.

A while later, he was seen hugging a huge bowl at the entrance to the kitchen and stuffing food into his mouth distractedly. He was so busy thinking about Glyphs that he never even noticed that Shui Yuan was adding food to his bowl the whole time.

An hour later, Lu Ye teleported back to the Outpost with a bulging belly. Maybe it was his imagination, but he felt like he ate more food than usual today…

The days flew by in the blink of an eye. During the day, Lu Ye would travel to the Summit of Clarity and study the Way of Glyphs from Lady Yun. When it was nighttime, he would return to the Outpost to cultivate and read at the same time. The days were very fulfilling.

He hadn’t entered the Rift of Illusions again though. In fact, he wasn’t going to try until he was certain he could overcome the ninth stage. He might have over five thousand Contribution Points right now, but that was no reason to spend them frivolously.