Chapter 39 – The sixth piece

A leisurely voice rang out as a well-dressed, wealthy-looking young man walked over to Wang Xiao Qi as he clapped. With the circulation of his spiritual power, wisps of red air ascended from Wang Xiao Qi’s body and gathered in his palm.

On the other side, a group of people were standing behind an assassin dressed in blue scholarly robes.

His arm slowly retracted as he placed his sword back into its sheath, its sharp sword aura disappearing instantly. 

Only then, did the people behind sigh in relief as they stared at the wealthy noble with resentful eyes.

As if they were blaming him for having them guard this assassin.

The assassin’s name was Li Yi Fan, one of the seven great prodigies in Yan that were ranked amongst Murong Zhan, Liu Xing Mang, and Yan Si Lu. However, he was the only wandering cultivator on the list.

Li Yi Fan had an indifferent expression as he hugged his sword at his chest, “Brother Lu, since I’ve found Wang Xiao Qi for you, isn’t it time for you to hand over the item you promised me?”

Lu Ting Chao nodded cheerily, taking out an azure blue fruit from his own bag of holding and tossing it towards Li Yi Fan, “Here, this is the Sword Heart Fruit you wanted, the higher Earth grade kind.”

Catching the Sword Heart Fruit with one hand, Li Yi Fan’s expression changed as the corners of his lips rose, “Alright, then, I’ll be leaving. Be careful.”

With a flick of his wrist, the fruit disappeared from his hands as he retreated, heading out of the valley.

Afterwards, Lu Ting Chao remained at the same location to continue refining Wang Xiao Qi’s corpse. Only after a while did the bloody scent dissipate while a red crystal appeared in his hands.

It was the Dragon God Crystal.

“Hahahahaha! The Dragon God Crystal! I got it!” Lu Ting Chao laughed heartily as he kicked Wang Xiao Qi’s corpse away.

“The news wasn’t fake after all, hah! What lies? It’s a pity that Wang Wu was murdered before I could force out more information from him!”

A weak-looking lackey quickly rushed over from the group of people, flattering him, “Young master Lu is indeed peerless with your great luck!”

“Hahahahaha! Naturally! This time, I’ll see how that woman can find a way to insult me! As long as I refine this Dragon God Crystal, I’ll be the number one genius in the Zong Xiang Gang! Father will have no choice but to hold me in high regard! Hahaha!” Lu Ting Chao continued to laugh.

“But, the great young miss has instructed for us to leave this place as soon as possible……should we……” The lackey asked carefully.

“Hmph! Do you believe her words? In my opinion, the reason why she’s stopping us is because she’s trying to devour this Dragon God Crystal for herself! I bet she’s digging in our vicinity somewhere! Whatever nonsense about a scheme, a trap, it’s all bullshit! Close to a hundred thousand people have been digging here, and there hasn’t been a single trap yet!” 

Some of his underlings started mumbling amongst themselves, but no one dared to speak up. Silently following behind their master, they continued to dig as they kept their ears open for any news about the crystals.

In a forest not too far away, a group of people were observing this situation.

The leader was a woman dressed in a martial outfit, she had a powerless expression as she eavesdropped on Lu Ting Chao’s party, walking deeper and deeper into the valley.

“Miss, are we really ignoring the young master?” One of the female servants behind her asked.

“How will I manage him? That guy doesn’t even listen to his old man’s words, how can I, Lu Hai Miao, manage him?” Lu Hai Miao spoke powerlessly.

She was Lu Hai Miao, one of the seven great prodigies in Yan and the great young miss in the Zong Xiang Gang.

Lu Ting Chao was her brother of a different mother, the great young master of the Zong Xiang Gang.

But due to her title as a prodigy, Lu Ting Chao was constantly dissatisfied with her, and with the lack of guidance and care from their father, he became more and more rebellious.

“But master……”

“Ignore the old man, he’ll only leave his seclusion in the next few days. I hope nothing big happens, considering that the situation here is getting worse. Right, how’s the progress on the investigation of that guy?” Lu Hai Miao asked.

“Nothing. You should know, he had only met with Wang Wu once, and since every other transaction and action was completed discreetly by his underlings, no one else had seen his face. The only one that had, Wang Wu, was killed by the great young master even before we could interrogate him. The only thing we know now is that he must have some kind of relationship with the Blood Spirits.”

“Despicable! If it weren’t for Lu Ting Chao accidentally killing Wang Wu, we would’ve known the identity of the person that commissioned our gang to spread this news. Now that our Zong Xiang Gang is dragged through the mud with this incident, there’s been a constant influx of people trying to gather information on us. If the Dragon God Crystal was truly that powerful, why wouldn’t he use it for himself?” Lu Hai Miao couldn’t understand it at all, who was the one that had commissioned them? Why did he do so? What was he trying to achieve?

As for Murong Lin, he would claim that this was all within the calculations of a scholar. 

He didn’t expect to be robbed by Wang Wu on that road, but it gave him an idea, information.

The transference of information in Yan relied on humans.

Without the internet or spiritual worlds, information was passed from one human to another.

That also meant that Murong Lin could use the distortion and speed that naturally came with spreading information to his advantage, creating a big impact on Yan.

That was why he designed this valley and made use of the Zong Xiang Gang to spread this news.

Most of the people here were from great influential forces while wandering cultivators and members of smaller influential forces were the minority. 

After all, it was rather difficult for wandering cultivators and smaller influential forces to have sufficient time and resources to gather in this place within a short amount of time.

That was the reason behind the great disparity, most of the people from the larger influential forces were strong, all of which were led by experts of the Manifestation realm.

And this had led to the illusion of a hundred thousand powerful people gathered here.

Seeing that Lu Ting Chao and his party had left her line of sight, Lu Hai Miao felt powerless. She wanted to leave this area as soon as possible, but she also wanted to find the culprit. After gritting her teeth and deliberating for a moment, she eventually decided to stay.

There were still countless people roaming the valley in search of Wang Xiao Qi, not knowing that he had already died. There were also powerful men digging in the ground relentlessly as others hawked over everyone else. Each of the great influential forces was incredibly wary of the other, not daring to relax in the slightest.

Suddenly, a ray of light shot upwards as a man quickly shouted, “Over there! Someone dug up a Dragon God Crystal! Let’s go!”

“Where is it? Dragon God Crystal! Where?”

“Over there! I think it’s the Shu clan of the Yan Xiao country that dug it up, ah that suppressiveness, the dragon’s aura is too powerful! With the red light glowing like that, it’ll be visible in a one-kilometre area! We need to hurry!”

“Fuck! The Shu clan got it!? The strongest in their clan is only at the Crystallisation realm.”

“This old man is also in the Crystallisation realm, why not……let’s work together?”

“You’re saying……alright! Let’s go together!”

With the appearance of the blood light, the news quickly spread as more than thirty thousand people threw their shovels and rushed over.

On the other hand, the Liu clan’s Liu Xing Mang was travelling with the disciples and elders of his clan. The leader, Liu Xing Mang’s eyes lit up with a cold light as he shouted in a low voice, “We must get that Dragon God Crystal!”

The surrounding Li clan members quickly responded, “Yes!”

But none of them noticed the greedy and strange glint in the eyes of some of the talented disciples in the Liu family.

On the other hand, Le Qing Qing led the Moon Fire sect members to rush over, shouting, “Annihilate the Shu clan and snatch that Dragon God Crystal! I’ll have my father reward you all when we return!”

Murong Jue was also leading his servants and soldiers over, exclaiming as he ran, “I, the fifth prince, will take this Dragon God Crystal! Everyone else, get lost!”

Behind him, Murong Jing and Murong Zhan followed closely with their own experts. 

Unlike the rest of them, Tang Can and Murong Xing walked behind leisurely, with a strange expression decorating Tang Can’s face.

Murong Xing asked, “Brother Tang, do you also feel like something is amiss?”

Tang Can nodded, his expression dark, “It doesn’t seem right. Firstly, a precious item such as a Dragon God Crystal would definitely not be buried in the earth. Furthermore, the news of this incident has spread too quickly, and with the Zong Xiang Gang being involved, everything seems too strange.”

“Haah, it truly is strange, please be careful, brother Tang.” Murong Xing advised kindly.

Translator’s note

Made the much-needed change from level to grade. Henceforth, the different items will be categorised like this, ‘Lower Sky grade” etc.