Chapter 114: Death of jiao sheng

Long Tao continued his practice after the Jiao Mingue left. "The most important thing now is to improve my strength. I will be concentrating on soul cultivation for the next week. I hope to reach the peak by then." With the help of the crimson lord world and its 1:6 ratio of time, Long Tao could stay in there for two months, compared to the 1 week in real world. "I need to have most of my clones concentrate on the soul cultivation."

The other part he needed to cultivate was his body. The thunder pills would last him for the next 5 meridian opening. He still has 28 more to open. The thunder balls would be a huge help to him, but even then, he would be a huge help, but even then, he would be left with 13 more meridians to take care of. He knew that those 13 would be really hard to open. He needs to get his hands-on strong source of energy if he wanted to open the last 13 tertiary meridians. 

Long Tao started the process of excavating more of his meridians with the help of the thunder pills. Soon enough Long Tao managed to open the 5 more meridians up. Long Tao could feel his body getting stronger as time went by. It was already two weeks in the Crimson Lord world by now. Long Tao only concentrated mostly on soul cultivation, which resulted in the end of 7th rotation and start of the 8th. It was time to begin the creation of thunder balls. 

Long Tao started to gather 3 of his avatars around the thunder pool. "how should I proceed?". "You need to use the elemental affinity of your body to first absorb the thunder energy in the pool and concentrate it into a ball sized energy source. The size once created will not increase any further, and you need to force feed it with energy, until it finally can't hold its form. The energy in the pool can be used to make 3 balls at most.". The keeper decided to divide the pool in three equal parts.

Long Tao started absorbing the Qi along with the avatars. The distribution of work was simple. Two avatars would be responsible for absorbing the Qi , and the other two would be responsible for concentrating it into a ball of thunder. The process started. The absorbing part was simple, but as time went by, the concentrating part started to get more and more difficult. The two avatars were having a very hard time managing it.

Both the avatars started sweating out of nervousness. The thunder energy was getting more and more wild as time went by. One could see the thunder pool slowly vanishing out of sight as the ball of thunder grew more and more shiny. The energy coming out of it was quite a lot. Long Tao didn't expect to be surprised by the amount of energy radiated from it. This pure thunder energy is going to be troublesome to absorb.

After lots of hard-work and absolute luck , Long Tao finally managed to concentrate all that energy into a ball. The first ball of thunder was finally created. Long Tao was still acting pretty nervous from the events that passed. He had almost run out of his Qi. A small mistake there and all his avatars in to the task would have been destroyed. "I apologize for not taking your advice carefully. I will be more cautious from now on." Long Tao said to the keeper. 

Long Tao continued the process after recovering his lost Qi. The process this time was a bit easier. The thunder ball was created with relative ease. Long Tao took his second break after that. Finally, after sometime, Long Tao managed to form the third ball of thunder too. "I will take a break for the day. We will start the cultivation of meridians tomorrow.". The keeper agreed. For a martial artist, the mental stature needs to be perfect.

The royal city-

Long Tao ended his training for the day and started to look into the lists. The first few mentions were quite common ones, like the black dagger and the shadow moon. Both of these assassination organizations have tried to take Long Tao's life, being killed by him in return. Long Tao had an especially bad impression of Black dagger hall. They were responsible for him being a cripple and almost killing him. If it was not for the three manuals, he wouldn't be alive today. He vowed to wipe them out. As per the Shadow moon, a deep enmity has been built between them and Long Tao, due to the number of people they have lost in his hands.

The third mention was some merchant company, named Merin. Long Tao decided to look into it first. They he saw the last mention in the organization list. Long Tao's hidden rage spilled out. The Bai clan, was the fourth suspect. Long Tao's miserable fate was because of an enmity caused by the Bai can's existence. He decided that he will have his revenge. But it was too irrational to kill all of them and Long Tao didn't want to let them off so easily. So, he decided to do something even darker.

"I will cripple each and every member of that clan. They would stay alive due to the mercy shown by me.". No one can point it as being heinous. But in a world of cultivation, Long Tao knew that being a cripple was much worse than death. Especially when the whole clan turns into a cripple. The keeper was worried regarding the bloodlust that Long Tao cultivated over the years, but he couldn't interfere in that. One needs to choose their own path. 

Long Tao also read some of the individual mentions written in there, and the first guy mentioned was the finance minister. Long Tao decided to visit his house first. 

The finance minister-

"Sir, someone is out there requesting for a meeting with you.". "Who is it?". The guard nervously said "He asked me to tell you that he is the one who ripped your brother's head clean from his body.". The finance minister broke a nearby table. So that bastard decided to pay him a visit after all. "let him come in." the guard left. "I hope you are ready with the proposal." A shadow emerged from somewhere in the dark. " if he doesn't agree, I will take action to kill him."

Long Tao entered the mansion just to find the finance minister waiting for him on his couch. "I didn't expect sir Long Tao to pay a visit to my humble dwelling. How may I help you?". Long Tao said with mocking tone.

"No need to act any further. I killed your brother and already know about your involvement with the shadow moon and black-dagger hall to carry out the assassination. I am here to capture you for interrogation in prison.". The finance minister was surprised by the straight-forward attitude of Long Tao. "Do you have any proof to certify your accusation?". Long Tao wanted to laugh." DO you think I need to have proof to kill you."? The finance minister was now bubbling with rage, but he was nervous more so.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here." A sound came from the shadows. Long Tao was surprised that he didn't manage to sense this guy any sooner. He managed to hide from Long Tao's senses for such a long time. This was a mistake on his behalf. "I have to commend Sir Long on his bravery and intelligence. You managed to guess so much just from the little clues we carelessly left behind. You even managed to outwit my assassins and kill every single one of them except Nightshade." Long Tao wanted to interrupt, but the figure continued" Who you sent back alive as a warning."

"I would sincerely like to invite you to our camp. Both of us know that the Jiao's are not efficient enough any more, neither are they powerful as they were. It is the weakest moment of the Jiao clan, and we can step in to be the better ruler in their place. I invite you become one of the pillars on which the new empire will stand. I assure you the benefits will not put the position in shame.". Long Tao raised his hands to stop the guy" I would like to clarify something. I have no interest in your venture. Also, I have promised the princess I will help her in the sustenance of the clan. So, would you two like to accompany me without a fight, or shall we start the brawl here."

The atmosphere grew tense. The figure who emerged, spread out his aura. Level 5 Qi general, just like Jiao Sheng. But Long Tao was no longer fearful. He was sure he could tackle with a single level 5 Qi general. The figure started to vanish, but Long Tao was a bit faster, the sword slash reached the figure before he could hide his aura. "Do you know the biggest flaw of an assassin; it is the fact that they are not good in one on one combat, once they are identified." The brawl continued and as he predicted, Long Tao began to overpower the guy. 

The figure had never imagined that Long Tao would be so powerful. He decided to escape from here. He picked his dagger and threw it at the finance minister, killing him, after which he threw a smoke bomb and vanished. Long Tao looked around, just to find the corpse of eth finance minister. He picked it up and walked out, towards the royal palace to report.

The royal palace-

Just as Long Taos set his foot in the gates, he felt the atmosphere to be unusual. He entered the royal court to see a surprising view. Jiao Mingue was currently sitting on the throne. When she saw Long Tao carrying a body with him, which was identified as the finance minister after being put down. " So the guy was guilty after all. I thank you for the service sir Long.". Long Tao nodded. " What is the situation here princess?"

Jiao Mingue calmed herself down. She couldn't bear to break down at this moment. She needs to confront her allies with the truth.. "An emergency situation has arise sir Long. The King has been assassinated. The killer is still being pursued at the northern walls. We shall have their report any time now."