Chapter 147 - Yao Zhengtian

The drought this year was a disaster, bringing unimaginable suffering to the common folk. The act of opening their granaries and providing the people relief was a great charitable deed by the Gu Mansion. Countless drought victims felt sincerely grateful to Gu Mansion. Each grateful thought gathered into a river, flowing towards Gu Mansion.

At the Soaring Heaven PaG.o.da of the Gu Mansion...

Gu Hai had gone into a closed-door training session. Everyone and everything was blocked outside the paG.o.da. Gu Qin, Shangguan Hen, and Chen Tianshan were sitting outside the Soaring Heaven PaG.o.da, acting as guardians for Gu Hai.

Suddenly, crisp sounds, like metal being struck against metal, came from inside the Soaring Heaven PaG.o.da, repeating again and again.

"This sounds like bones clas.h.i.+ng with each other? What kind of breakthrough is my Lord having?" a confused Chen Tianshan wondered aloud.

Shangguan Hen, furrowing his brow slightly, shook his head. Apparently, he was also not too sure...

Inside the paG.o.da, Gu Hai was still seated in the lotus position. From all over his body, sounds of bones being hammered were reverberating out.

Back in the Ding Long Clan, inside the 29x29 weiqi world, the Life Severing Saber had sucked out an endless amount of energy from the dragon vein, one-thousandth of which was fed back into Gu Hai, strengthening his bones. After reaching the final stage, he had encountered a bottleneck. A large part of the energy was still there, but stored inside his bones. He was unable to make any kind of qualitative transformation.

The streaming karmic merit, flowing into Gu Hai's body after transforming into Karmic fate, broke that bottleneck. His bones finally began to undergo a qualitative transformation.

Thunderous tremors coursed through Gu Hai's body for six hours straight.

After that time, a deafening thunderclap shook the air as his bones finally stopped colliding. But the sounds of bones cracking immediately started up, continuing for another two hours. Only then did everything calm down, albeit slowly.

A bone broke through his skin, slowly emerging from Gu Hai's palm with a flick of thought. Although Gu Hai's bones had undergone a qualitative transformation, his bones were still silver-white in color. However, this bone was s.h.i.+ning with a metallic l.u.s.ter, and was as dense as silver, but far more rigid. Gu Hai's bone looked like it was forged from a silver-like metal!

Gu Hai took out a longsword with a flick of his hand.

Gu Hai thrust the edge of the silverish bone towards the longsword, and it pierced through the metal blade rather easily. The bone was incomparably sharp!

"This is an external strength breakthrough!?" Gu Hai marveled at the end of his experiment.

At his intent, the bone slowly shrank back, receding back into his body. The tear in his skin also vanished in the blink of an eye.

Afterward, without a moment of delay and hesitation, Gu Hai closed his eyes again, focusing all his attention on his dantian. In addition to having a breakthrough in external strength, the True Qi in his dantian had also reached a limit, and it was also about to have a breakthrough!

That feeling of comfort washed over his entire body, filling it to the brim. The Karmic Fate streamed down his body, slowly forming a golden halo over him.

His eyes closed, Gu Hai's consciousness sank into his dantian.

At present, his dantian was choked full of a large amount of True Qi. The True Qi dragon circling inside the vortex of True Qi was congealing more True Yuan continuously. However, the nine fist-sized True Yuan there had looped into a ring, repelling one another, and were unable to take the next step forward.

Suddenly, the True Qi dragon let out a roar. The True Dragon Xiantian Exercise had already been pushed to the limit. The True Qi cyclone could only get stronger and faster.

Streams of golden energy surged into Gu Hai's dantian, one after another. The golden energy was the karmic merit gathering on its own from all around Nine-Five Island. The golden Karmic Fate slowly made its way down into the nine fist-sized True Yuans.

Surrounded by the golden Karmic Fate, the nine fist-sized True Yuan started to fuse, merging together slowly but surely.

As the nine True Yuans fused together, a thunderous bang immediately followed as a powerful energy gushed out from his dantian.

A burst of qi broke out from Gu Hai's body with another boom.

Inside Gu Hai's dantian, a melon-sized aqueous purplish True Yuan ball was slowly rotating. Above it was a vortex that kept on spinning, like it would condense all the True Qi in Gu Hai's body into this True Yuan ball. However, it seemed to have reached the limit. Not a drop of True Yuan could be added to it anymore.

The True Qi flowing in Gu Hai's meridians was half in gaseous form and half in vaporous form. It seemed to have reached a critical point!

Opening his eyes, Gu Hai looked at his clenched hands and took a deep breath. "The tenth level of the Xiantian Stage, the Xiantian Stage has been perfected! I can attack the Golden Core Stage!?"

The Karmic Fate continued to pour into his body in a steady stream. Gu Hai was very satisfied with his current state.

"Karmic Fate? In the beginning, when I was in the Houtian Stage, had I founded a kingdom early on, perhaps I would not have needed to work so hard to achieve the Xiantian Stage!" Gu Hai mused, ruminating on the past.

Then in the next moment, the corners of his lips rose into a bitter smile. "Be that as it may, at that time, all the kingdoms were under the control of various sects. I simply would not have been able to found any kingdom with my strength!"

Taking a deep breath, Gu Hai slowly stood up. An inexplicable burst of pleasure broke out from every pore of his body. Gradually, Gu Hai made his way to the window of the Soaring Heaven PaG.o.da.

"Father, have you broken through?" Gu Qin asked, delighted.

A slight smile immediately bloomed on Gu Hai's lips as he nodded in affirmation.

Having tasted the effects of Karmic Fate, Gu Hai was sure about one thing: founding a kingdom was, in fact, the correct decision!

Over the next ten days, Karmic Fate continued to pour into Gu Hai's body. His body was like a golden glow s.h.i.+ning in the dark night, giving everyone the impression that he was a G.o.d.

Originally, Gu Hai was feeling extremely comfortable. However, at this moment, a furrow appeared on Gu Hai's brow.

Even though the Karmic Fate pouring into his body was comfortable, it was also dissipating. If this went on, the unused Karmic Fate would slowly dissipate with time. If so, it would result in lots of wastage.

"I need to find out the method to acc.u.mulate Karmic Fate. Otherwise, a large part of the Fate will be wasted! As such, when it would be time to use it, it would be insufficient!" Gu Hai was absorbed in his thoughts.

While Gu Hai was immersed in his thoughts inside the library, Shangguan Hen came looking for him after a time.

"My Lord, we found the Divine Battalion disciples! However...!" Shangguan Hen looked at Gu Hai with a wry smile on his face.

"Oh?" Gu Hai muttered, unsure of what that portended.

"They seemed to have gone through a great battle. The battlefield was completely drenched in blood. We could only find the corpse of a single Divine Battalion disciple," reported Shangguan Hen.

While speaking, two of Gu Hai's subordinates carried a stretcher in, upon which was the corpse of a Divine Battalion soldier.

Gu Hai checked the corpse a bit and said, "Killed with one blow, a blow piercing through the heart!?"

Shangguan Hen nodded. "Yes! The blow sent him flying, and the place he fell hid his corpse in the gra.s.s, that's the only reason his corpse remained. I reckon that the other Divine Battalion soldiers are also dead, but their corpses were taken away! More importantly, the attacker simply didn't leave any traces!"

"Oh?" Gu Hai slightly furrowed his brow.

"Father, Father...!" At this moment, Gu Qin hurriedly rushed into the room.

"Hmm?" Gu Hai looked at Gu Qin, confused.

"Father, there is a person outside with a thousand heads; he says he has killed Gao Liusheng as well as a thousand Divine Battalion soldiers, and wants to give their heads to Father!" Gu Qin reported hurriedly, knitting his brow.

It was too strange; came to give heads!?

Gu Hai and Shangguan Hen looked at one another.

"Young Master, who is he?" Shangguan Hen inquired carefully.

"I am not sure! It's an old man with a few white hairs, and quite polite to us. He brought a thousand heads in ten big boxes, I can only wonder how he carried them here..." Gu Qin reported, frowning.

"Let's go and take a look!" said the intrigued yet cautious Gu Hai.

Shangguan Hen and Gu Qin closely followed him as he hurried towards the doors.

Very soon, Gu Hai arrived outside the Gu Mansion grand array.

"My Lord!"

"My Lord!"

All the Gu Mansion members in the vicinity respectfully saluted Gu Hai. At this moment, everyone had surrounded the square.

Placed in the center of the square were ten huge wooden boxes, now opened wide. Each box had a hundred heads dripping blood inside. Among them, Gu Hai noticed a familiar face. He had seen this man accompanying Li Haoran.

This is Gao Liusheng!?

Standing before the ten boxes was an old man wearing a gandoura, a wide-sleeved robe. Apart from two patches of slightly uplifted white hair, he was bald, and his face had a ruddy complexion.

"Old Crock Yao Zhengtian greets Mister Gu!" the white-haired old man greeted Gu Hai with a slight smile.

"Oh? Greetings, Mister Yao! I wonder as to the reason Mister Yao has brought ten boxes of heads?" Gu Hai asked, perplexed.

"These thousand men are Divine Battalion disciples. They were rallying powerful experts everywhere to a.s.sa.s.sinate Mister Gu, and unfortunately for them, they encountered this Old Crock. So, this Old Crock dealt with them. I brought their heads as a gift for our first meeting!" Yao Zhengtian explained as a slight smile appeared on his face.

"Oh?" Gu Hai narrowed his eyes.

"Mister Gu, you don't need to be suspicious, they wanted to deal with Mister Gu, and they also had an enmity with this old man. I just took this opportunity to shoot two birds with one stone, that's all!" a smiling Yao Zhengtian a.s.sured him.

Gu Hai was slightly taken aback. This man was honest, he didn't go out of his way to promote his gifts at all, but just laid things down as they were.

"Mister Yao, this lowly one has never met Mister Yao, I don't know why Mister Yao...?" Gu Hai stated, confused.

"Mister Gu should know me!" Yao Zhengtian told him with a smile.

"Oh?"

"In the past, this lowly one visited the Golden Tong with my three thousand subordinates, many people should have heard of me. Only, I later encountered the Divine Battalion commander, Li Haoran. I fought with him, and as a result, I was forced to return to the sea. Unfortunately, my three thousand subordinates were completely ma.s.sacred by the Divine Battalion. That's how the Divine Battalion became my enemy, and the reason I came here!" Yao Zhengtian explained as a grim smile appeared on his old face.

"Hmm?" Hearing this, Gu Hai's pupils immediately constricted. "You are that Bixi sea beast?"

When Gu Hai was imprisoned in the Golden Tong, the Bixi had landed on Nine-Five Island with his three thousand subordinates, stimulating the Heavens, and ultimately seizing the earth dragon vein!?

"That's right!" Yao Zhengtian affirmed with a smile.

"The Divine Battalion disciples ate my three thousand subordinates, so naturally, these thousand Divine Battalion soldiers were eaten by me! I only kept the head to give it to Mister Gu, I sincerely hope Mister Gu will excuse me. This time, I came here because I have a request... I hope I am not disturbing Mister Gu!" Yao Zhengtian grinned widely.

Hearing this, the expression in Gu Hai's eyes flickered before he nodded and said, "Mister Yao came from far away! Please, let's talk inside!"

"Thank you very much, Mister Gu!" Yao Zhengtian nodded politely.

Yao Zhengitan, following Gu Hai, slowly stepped into the grand array covering the Gu Mansion, leaving behind a crowd of flabbergasted Gu Mansion members.

"Sea beast, Bixi!? I did not hear it wrong, right? It's actually him?" one of Gu Hai's subordinate cried in shock.

"My Lord is getting more and more formidable, even sea beast Bixi came with gifts to request a favor!"

"Yao Zhengtian? In the beginning, I was wondering why this name was so familiar, so it was that Bixi!"...

The crowd of ex-convicts were amazed and feeling proud. Their Lord's prestige was their own prestige!

The sea beast, Bixi, who has a towering fame in the Thousand Islands Seas, is actually so polite to my Lord!

Gu Hai led Yao Zhengtian to a hall, where Gu Qin, Shangguan Hen, and Chen Tianshan also arrived to entertain Yao Zhengtian.

"Mister Yao, please!" Gu Hai invited Yao Zhengtian to sit.

"Thank you!" Yao Zhengtian responded politely.

Gu Qin came forward and poured a cup of tea for the two.

"Mister Yao, you did not come to me for the dragon vein, right?" Gu Hai asked, a bit confused.

Yao Zhengtian shook his head and said, "This Old Crock has already seen through it, I can't take that dragon vein. There are stratagems left behind by Elder Guanqi, and anyone who dares to touch them will be killed. Therefore, Mister Gu does not need to worry, I did not come here for that. But I do have a request to make of Mister Gu!"