CH 352

After receiving the gourd from Kou Chongxue, Shang Xia couldn’t contain the joy in his heart. It was as though a heavenly treasure had fallen onto his lap. 

Without mentioning the ability of the fate dipper qi to regenerate, just the strength it possessed was terrifying enough!

“Anyone under the Martial Dipper Realm would find it almost impossible to withstand the sword qi” Just that sentence from Kou Chongxue alone told Shang Xia how precious the strand of sword qi was! It was more than capable of threatening the lives of any Martial Extermination Realm expert!

The more frightening part of it was that Kou Chongxue actually left behind a part of a fate dipper in the gourd. That was what allowed the sword qi to regenerate even after it was exhausted. 

That would mean that Shang Xia could utilize the sword qi over and over!

There was no other treasure in Shang Xia’s arsenal that would be able to match up to it at the moment. The sword qi became the strongest trump card he had!

Kou Chongxue’s sigh entered Shang Xia’s ears again. “It’s a pity your gourd isn’t strong enough. It’s only able to withstand a little of my Eternal Spring Fate Dipper. If it was able to take a strand of sword qi from my Primal Yang Copper Fate Dipper, you’ll be able to give any Martial Dipper Realm expert a run for their money. You can even kill them if the situation permits…” 

Shang Xia’s hand trembled while holding the gourd and he quickly thanked Kou Chongxue, “Many thanks! Patriarch Kou, your gift is already precious enough!” 

Turning to Shang Xia, Kou Chongxue nodded to himself half-heartedly. “Oh yeah. You’re not in the Martial Extermination Realm yet. Even if I manage to leave behind a strand of sword qi from my Primal Yang Fate Dipper, you won’t be able to use it. You can’t withstand the energy contained…” 

“...” 

After he was done speaking, his gaze turned to Shang Pei before addressing Shang Xia again. “This old man shouldn’t stay here for too long. I’ll return to the Tongyou City right now. The situation is still pretty chaotic after the battle. You shall remain in the Changfeng City and act as the Temporary City Lord. Hold the fort here and stabilize the situation. Wait for the institution to send someone over to take your place.” 

Shang Xia waved his hand in panic and cried, “This disciple isn’t capable of that! One has to be a Martial Extermination Realm expert to be a city lord! That’s the only way to suppress the various cultivators in the city and those who wish to harm it. I seem somewhat lacking…” 

Kou Chongxue didn’t bother about him and turned into a streak of light that returned to his Hidden Frost Sword. He snorted in disdain. “Heh, don’t undervalue yourself. Is there anyone under the Martial Extermination Realm who can be your opponent?” Pausing for a second, a trace of frost filled his voice as he continued, “As for those in the Martial Extermination Realm, which one of them will dare to jump out now and cause trouble?” 

When he was done speaking, he didn’t wait for a response as he turned into a streak of light. All he left behind was his voice echoing through the spirit cave. “Alright, I’m off!” before disappearing into the space in front of Shang Xia.

Looking at the place where the sword disappeared, Shang Xia felt a sense of disappointment filling his heart. However, he eventually turned to look at Shang Pei who was sitting there with her eyes closed. “Since senior is already awake, why don’t you greet the patriarch? It’s a little disrespectful for you to pretend not to see him… After all, he’s the patriarch of our Tongyou Institution and a Martial Dipper Realm expert! He’s one of the peak existences in our Azure Origin World!” 

After a short period of silence and Shang Xia felt that Shang Pei was planning to ignore him completely, she eventually spoke. “This old lady’s body was completely frozen when he looked at me earlier! I couldn’t even get up!” 

…

The Tongyou Institution’s act of bringing the Mysterious Coral World back to the You Continent and drawing over the Origin Tide to transform it into the Tongyou Mysterious World. It caused a huge battle to break out over the world origin and the treasures that came along with it. Eventually, Kou Chongxue’s frightening reappearance caused those who stood against the institution to retreat and he charged into the Ji Continent alone to take revenge on the White Deer Paradise. The three ancestors had to take the loss due to his sudden appearance, and with that, the events finally drew to a close. 

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Even though making the three ancestors of the White Deer Paradise take a loss seemed to be an overstatement, and Kou Chongxue only managed to do it because he caught them off guard, it was true that the White Deer Paradise suffered a loss because of him. Naturally, Xuan Lu only returned to join the battle at the end, but the huge hole Kou Chongxue blew in the White Deer Paradise overshadowed everything. 

After causing enough damage to the White Deer Paradise, Kou Chongxue managed to escape in one piece. With that, the Tongyou Institution could be said to have achieved a one sided victory. Kou Chongxue’s prestige was like a sun that hung in the midday sky and everyone realized that the Madman of the You Continent was back!

As for little Shang Xia who was appointed as the temporary city lord by Kou Chongxue, he was swamped and he couldn’t leave the city for the foreseeable future.

Once he proclaimed his title and laid claim to the City Lord Manor, the city turned surprisingly calm. He passed down a few orders and discovered that his instructions were carried out exceedingly smoothly. His plan of killing the chicken to scare the monkeys fell through! The plan he came up with to deal with those who dared to openly oppose him became useless!

Of course, Shang Xia knew that everything that was happening had nothing to do with his individual prestige. It was just that no one in the city dared to cause any trouble at that moment. A huge battle had just passed, and everyone needed time to recover. 

Shang Xia couldn’t be more pleased with the situation. He was more than happy to spend more time on his personal cultivation.

In a small courtyard in the eastern part of the city, Shang Xia was fully focused on crafting the talisman in front of him. 

The room he was in wasn’t shabby at all, but it was extremely cluttered. There wasn’t much space to put other things. 

Looking at the seemingly all-powerful Shang Xia, his fate was slightly laughable. He experienced so much in such a short amount of time and he had no time to practice talisman crafting during his cultivation.

His cultivation rose like a rocket, but he was still a rank two talisman master. It was extremely disproportionate to his cultivation at the Martial Intent Realm.

After taking on his position as the temporary city lord, Shang Xia couldn’t allocate too much time to his cultivation as he was unable to use his Crimson Soul Tablet to optimize the rank four advancement formulas he had for fear of damaging it too greatly. There wasn’t much to do anyway, and he decided to place more focus on the art of formations.

As he had the experience of creating his special rank two talismans, his speed of improvement was terrifying. His foundations were solid anyway. With his extraordinarily powerful divine sense that underwent some sort of miraculous baptism after he comprehended his Man and Heaven Synergy Chapter, he managed to control his energy to a greater degree when crafting talismans. It gave him an impressive success rate when crafting talismans.

Because of that, Shang Xia took one month to get into his peak condition before setting out his mind to craft a rank three talisman for real.

The difficulty of crafting a rank three talisman was a huge jump from crafting a rank two one. Even exceptional talisman masters wouldn’t possess extremely high success rates when crafting a rank three talisman. That explained the rarity of it as battles involving Martial Intent Realm experts rarely involved the use of talismans.

There were many reasons behind that. One was because of the difficulty of crafting rank three talismans, and another was because rank three talisman masters were few and far between…

After Shang Xia started his attempt, he discovered the greatest challenge was the about of divine sense that it required! A cultivator’s divine sense was somewhat connected with their cultivation and soul, and it was something that wasn’t easily exhausted. 

To give a context of what divine sense was, it was connected to a cultivator’s soul and it represented how strong their will was. Like what cultivators usually say, “I can be defeated, but I cannot admit defeat!”  That was probably a testament to their willpower…

Since one’s divine sense was connected to their soul, any exhaustion to it would result in a much lengthier process of recovery. The possibility of experiencing cultivation deviation was much higher than when absorbing heaven and earth qi!

That singular reason forced many talisman masters to rethink their decision to craft a rank three talisman.

Even if they had successfully crafted one before and can be considered a rank three talisman master, they would still think twice before making one.

Shang Xia might be a young master of a great clan, but he didn’t possess many rank three talismans! He currently had another one, and that was a Suspended Spear Talisman Shang Ke passed to him sometime previously. 

Before Shang Ke entered the Martial Extermination Realm, he managed to request for a talisman master from the institution to assist him in sealing his divine sense into a talisman. After expending a huge amount of divine sense, Shang Ke managed to produce two talismans. He gave one to Shang Xia before he entered the Coral Forest, and he gave Shang Xia another one after learning that he had used the first.

Shang Ke attempted the talisman creation thrice, but he only succeeded in making two talismans. After he recovered, he wanted to try again, but he was strictly forbidden from doing so by Shang Bo.

Using someone else’s divine sense when crafting rank three talismans was a method used by rank three talisman masters to practice their craft while keeping their risk to a minimum.

One could practice the art of crafting talismans while the person who provided the divine sense would be able to receive a talisman after completion. It was a win-win situation!

The only problem with that was that the expenditure of divine sense was much more terrifying than if the talisman master created the talisman himself. The reason was simple too. Using someone else’s divine sense was much less effective than using their own!

As for cultivators who separated a part of their divine sense, they might suffer hidden injuries or damages to their divine sense without their knowledge. That was the reason why Shang Bo strictly forbade Shang Ke from doing anything else like that. 

Since Shang Xia wasn’t keeping his plan to craft a rank three talisman a secret anyway, Shang Quan was specially dispatched from the Tongyou City by Shang Ke to warn Shang Xia. A severe warning came from Shang Ke. “No matter what, you are not to over exert your divine sense when creating talismans!” 

Also, the higher the talisman rank, the stronger it would be. The ingredients used to craft such talismans would definitely be more precious than lower leveled talismans.

Looking at the rank three talisman paper in front of him, Shang Xia didn’t need to ask to know that the entire Shang Clan wouldn’t be able to find three rank three talisman papers even if they flipped the clan upside down. They might have one or two if Shang Ke and Shang Bo went around to ask for favors, but the Shang Clan itself had no capabilities of producing rank three talisman papers!

What a stroke of luck that Shang Xia managed to take on the position as the temporary city lord… Yang Hu had managed the Changfeng City for more than ten years. The Changfeng City was also a major chokepoint for those who wanted to travel to the You Continent, and that made them a trading hub. Yang Hu might be holding on to the extremely precious stuff himself, but the treasury in the city wasn’t lacking either. Shang Xia managed to find some treasures that caught his eye in there. He also managed to find two rank three talisman papers that he was planning to use to push himself to the rank three talisman master level.

Shang Quan tossed out another idea to Shang Xia when he was there. He could put out a notice that the City Lord Manor in the Changfeng City was willing to purchase rank three talisman paper, and might solve a lot of problems.

Shang Xia implemented the plan quickly and to his surprise, someone came over to sell. Shang Xia managed to purchase 2 rank three talisman papers from him and a Golden Scale Qi Quelling Ink Slab and a Spirit Concentration Jade Press. He also managed to buy two pieces of Calming Incense. 

Naturally, Shang Xia wouldn’t take those items for free. He paid the man according to the market value of those items. He spent a huge half of the silver essence he obtained from all the experts he killed in an instant.

Even so, he understood that those items had no set value to them. He wouldn’t be able to find them in the open market out there. Even if people wanted to buy, they might not be able to! Control of the City Lord Manor had its benefits indeed. 

The person who came to sell had also been screened by Shang Quan. They were willing to sell such precious items to Shang Xia because they wanted protection from the Tongyou Institution in exchange for the favor. They wished to open a trading route with the Tongyou City after it was rebuilt. All they hoped for was for Shang Xia to remember them in the future so that they could do business easily in the Tongyou City.

With Shang Xia’s current prestige and power, he could do many things like that with a simple statement. As long as he mentioned it in passing to his Grandpa Ke, the Shang Clan would help them out slightly. After all, Shang Xia’s authority had risen a long way after he entered the Martial Intent Realm.

Luckily, Shang Xia knew how to deal with people like that. He couldn’t give them too much and he needed to know when to stop. He wasn’t an immature brat anymore. He understood that all the power he was wielding now was because of the overbearing existence that was the Tongyou Institution behind him.

Shang Xia might seem to understand how much more authority he gained, but in actuality, he was still underestimating himself. Even a senior like Shang Quan who had experienced much more of the world didn’t know how terrifying of an existence Shang Xia was!

If one truly dug deep, they would realize that Shang Xia was a freakish existence who was on speaking terms with Kou Chongxue! That was the Madman of the You Continent they were talking about! A Martial Dipper Realm expert who stood at the peak of the power pyramid in the world! With all his contributions and talent, Shang Xia could actually get Kou Chongxue to back him up if anything were to happen! That was the true extent of Shang Xia’s influence!

Even Shang Xia himself hadn’t realized that!