by Translator: BornToBe; Author: Ordinary Magician (平凡魔术师); Licensed From: 17k
“The reason the energy transfer is costing so much is because the energy is transferred through the runes without Spiritual Strength. That’s what makes it so clunky. If the energy transfer is supported by Spiritual Strength, it will definitely save more energy, and then we won’t just be limited to having everyone’s power gather on Guo Ran. Everyone will be able to share energy with everyone!” exclaimed Xia Chen.
“But... boss also said that it’s impossible to connect people’s souls like that. We have ten thousand different souls,” said Guo Ran.
“That’s no problem. Even if we can’t carve spiritual runes on hard armor, what about soft armor?” Xia Chen’s eyes were shining.
Guo Ran clapped his leg, excitedly shouting, “That’s right, we can use soft armor for this!”
However, after a moment of excitement, they sobered up. Guo Ran said, “But carving spiritual runes on soft armor requires the highest level of leather. What kind of pelt is capable of receiving such powerful runes and constant spiritual fluctuations without crumbling?”
To endure the impact of over ten thousand people’s souls connecting, they needed the strongest spiritual runes, and only the strongest of hides could endure those runes without crumbling. Even a half-step Netherpassage beast’s skin wasn’t tough enough.
“Is this good enough?”
An explosive sound rang out as Long Chen tossed the Sword Spine Armor Dragon out of the primal chaos space. A terrifying aura caused everyone to jump and retreat.
“A Sword Spine Armor Dragon? Boss… you… did you prepare this for us in advance?” Xia Chen’s voice was trembling. He actually recognized this terrifying beast.
“Xia Chen, can you use this hide?” On the other hand, Guo Ran was already used to Long Chen giving him pleasant surprises. The only question was whether this hide was high level enough or not.
“It’s enough, it’s definitely enough. The Sword Spine Armor Dragon’s strongest aspect is its tough hide. Even quasi divine items are unable to pierce it. It can definitely endure the impact of everyone’s Spiritual Strength.” Xia Chen touched the corpse, his hand quivering from emotion.
“Then what are you waiting for? Let’s get to work!” Guo Ran was even more excited than Xia Chen.
Xia Chen pulled back his hand and shook his head. “The Sword Spine Armor Dragon’s hide is good, and I have the spiritual runes we need in my head, but we’re lacking many materials. Most of the material I am carrying is for setting up grand formations. I have very few materials for spiritual runes, and their quality isn’t high enough…
“What else do you need?” asked Guo Ran.
“Inscription fluid that must be refined from the essence blood of over ten thousand different Magical Beasts, and those Magical Beasts must have reached the eleventh rank at least. There’s also the inscription brush, the powder of the Sky Crystal Stone, the Underworld Butterfly Flower, the Soul Subduing Paper…” Xia Chen listed off dozens of items that people had never heard of.
“So what you’re saying is you need more money?” asked Long Chen directly.
“Yes, and a great, great deal of money. Right now, we can probably…”
Long Chen waved his hand, and a mountain of spirit crystals appeared in front of everyone. Some of them rolled down the mountain with tinkling sounds. This mountain of spirit crystals stunned everyone.
“Boss, did you go plundering again?” asked Guo Ran.
“Is this enough?” Long Chen ignored Guo Ran.
“Yes, it’s definitely enough,” said Xia Chen excitedly.
“Then alright. Do your best to strengthen the Dragonblood Legion. If there’s not enough money, just tell me and I’ll think of something else.”
Long Chen left the Sword Spine Armor Dragon and the spirit crystals to them. He returned to his own seclusion room.
Chapter 1751 Public Announcement of the Devil Slaughter Rankings
Once Long Chen left, Xia Chen had an urge to cry as he looked at the tall mountain of spirit crystals. The feeling of having a boss was truly excellent.
Before this, he had spent his spirit stones stingily, wishing he could split each one in two before spending one. But now he had a rich boss. He was definitely and fully loyal now.
He wrote a list of items and gave it to Qian Duoduo. Qian Duoduo was the one in charge of the Dragonblood Legion’s financial affairs, so he would be the one buying the items.
Ever since Long Chen had accepted him to the Dragonblood Legion, Qian Duoduo had become the link between the Huayun Sect and the Dragonblood Legion. He did everything neatly and tidily and had never done anything to cause Long Chen to worry.
Back then, Qian Duoduo had made a small business during the disciple trial. When Long Chen had encountered him, he had felt that Qian Duoduo’s head was pretty good, so he had accepted him into the Dragonblood Legion. Now, Qian Duoduo had gone from an unremarkable disciple to a rank nine Celestial and was even well-known amongst the Dragonblood warriors. He had reached a level he had never dreamed of reaching before.
After receiving Xia Chen’s list, Qian Duoduo immediately set off to purchase the items. Because this was a major affair, Guo Ran accompanied him to prevent anything unexpected from happening.
During the following few days, the Dragonblood Legion no longer continued their training. They took a few days of rest.
Xia Chen was busy planning the sizes of the leather armor and testing the endurance of the leather. Xia Chen chose the best parts of the Sword Spine Armor Dragon’s hide, parts that were best for the spiritual runes.
Three days later, Guo Ran and Qian Duoduo returned, bringing all the materials that Xia Chen had requested. Xia Chen finally experienced the world of the rich and how grand it was.
With all the materials that they needed, Xia Chen and Guo Ran went into seclusion. Guo Ran was in charge of cutting off the Sword Spine Armor Dragon’s skin and turning it into leather.
The Sword Spine Armor Dragon was incredibly tough, and cutting it required special tools. Furthermore, those tools would quickly have their runes run out of energy and have to be switched out with newer ones.
The blades that they were using were the best possible, and each of them cost over ten spirit crystals to manufacture. Their runes were added by Xia Chen. If sold, they could go for over thirty spirit crystals.
So whether it was Forging Master or a Formation Master, they were both money-burning professions. Guo Ran always had Long Chen’s support, and so he never had to worry about money.
However, Xia Chen had been alone before and was profoundly aware of how bitter making money was. Now that he didn’t need to worry about it and could focus entirely on his work, he felt blessed.
Guo Ran was creating the leather armor, while Xia Chen was adding the spiritual runes. The two of them worked day and night.
As for Long Chen, he wasn’t slacking either. After returning to his room, he spent all day crazily refining pills. He had already found a faster way to cultivate, so as long as he had enough medicinal pills, he could attempt to attack the Life Star realm.
Once he reached the Life Star realm, he could do a few heaven-shaking things. First was subduing the azure dragon reverse scale. That was something that Evilmoon had told him he could only do once he reached the Life Star realm. Before that, he would definitely die.
The other major affair was undoing the Sovereign seal on Evilmoon. Evilmoon would be able to unleash its full power at that time.
So Long Chen was already getting anxious for the Life Star realm. His enemies were growing stronger and stronger. He was already starting to fight with Netherpassage experts. If he didn’t get stronger, he would be doomed. That was because his enemies weren’t just powerful, but they were also growing increasingly shameless.
As for the Heaven Flipping Seal, Long Chen had called over the busy Xia Chen and explained the matter of the Heaven Flipping Seal.
Xia Chen had immediately inlaid a formation on the Heaven Flipping Seal that could allow it to recov
er faster. However, because it was a divine item, Xia Chen did not have the ability to create a formation allowing it to directly absorb divine energy. After all, Xia Chen could not create divine formations yet.
Despite that, the formation he had added allowed the Heaven Flipping Seal to recover ten times faster than before. That already satisfied Long Chen.
As for Meng Qi, Chu Yao, Tang Wan-er, Gu Yang, Li Qi, and Song Mingyuan, they had yet to come out of seclusion. After the last battle, their manifestations had shown signs of awakening, and they were still in seclusion.
Rather than being worried that they hadn’t come out after all this time, Long Chen was feeling excited. They would only come out quickly if they had failed. Since they hadn’t, it meant that there was a good chance they would be able to awaken their manifestations.
Long Chen and hundreds of Huo Long’s split bodies were refining pills together. He bought over a thousand pill furnaces that were on the level of an Ancestral item. That was practically all the stock of the Huayun Sect’s high level furnaces.
With his Spiritual Strength working with Huo Long’s hundreds of split bodies, Long Chen didn’t even need to control anything. He just needed to lend the split bodies his Spiritual Strength.
If it was just Huo Long refining alone, due to its limited Spiritual Strength, it would be unable to have so many split bodies refining at once, and the quality of the refined pills would be affected.
With Long Chen lending his Spiritual Strength to it, not only was the quality of the refined pills guaranteed, but the speed had also increased greatly.
Over a thousand pill furnaces were constantly lighting up, with medicinal pills flying out repeatedly. A small mountain of pills quickly piled up. This kind of refining speed would definitely scare normal alchemists to death.
However, Long Chen knew that if he wanted to attack the Life Star realm, he would need an unimaginable number of pills for it.
With his understanding of the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art, the last three Heavenstages required a huge amount of energy to break through. Each level was incredibly difficult.
Time passed day by day, and twenty-three days passed in the blink of an eye. Guo Ran came over to interrupt Long Chen from his refining. He and Guo Ran left Crouching Dragon Mountain and arrived in the Xuantian Plaza.
All the Xuantian Dao Sect’s disciples and Elders were gathered here today. They were looking nervously at a projection of a divine tablet in the air.
This was the Devil Slaughter Divine Tablet. There were many names on it corresponding to the Devil Slaughter Rankings.
Today was the day the rewards were given out for the Devil Slaughter Rankings. It had been ninety-nine days since the battle of the Devil Abyss had ended.
All the large powers had been denouncing Long Chen during this time, criticizing him for colluding with the original devil race and using despicable cheating methods to take first place.
As for Guo Ran, he was even more despicable, using some bizarre black water to slay the devil creatures. There was no way he was qualified to be in the top ten.
“Have you told this matter to others?” asked Long Chen.
“No, I was worried it would affect their mood,” whispered Guo Ran.
“Not bad, it seems you’ve matured quite a bit. It’s best that they don’t get too emotional over this. If their anger affected their cultivation, it would be bad.”
“Boss, do we really have no hope?”
Even if he had used the black water to kill the devil creatures, that was still his own power. If others had the ability, then they could get some death spirit water to use as well. If they didn’t have the ability, then they shouldn’t be able to accuse others of cheating when they did it.
“Do you want me to tell the truth or lie?” Long Chen looked at Guo Ran.
“Fine. There’s no point in believing your own lies. There are so many experts on the Martial Heaven Continent, and at least eighty percent of the Soul Transformation experts are our enemies. As long as they pray to the divine tablet and say that they don’t accept our accomplishments, our rankings will definitely be canceled.” Guo Ran deflated like a balloon. He didn’t even have a desire to hear any words of comfort from Long Chen.
“Don’t be so dejected, there will be more chances to change your fate. But if missing this chance makes you too dejected, angry, or resentful, you won’t be able to grasp the next chance. Just look at your boss. I have never lived off luck, I got my opportunities through adversity. Did I complain? Am I any bit inferior to other experts of the same age?”
“You’re right, boss. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever seen. No one can defeat you.” Guo Ran nodded sincerely. He had almost blind confidence in Long Chen.
“Then let me tell you something…”
“Alright, I’m listening.”
“Today, there’s no way to solve this problem, so there’s no need to think about it. Let time slowly pass, and tomorrow you will find… that fuck, there’s still no way to solve it,” sighed Long Chen.
“Boss, you’re just telling me garbage!” Guo Ran was speechless.
“Let me finish. That’s why I say, when you encounter something you can’t solve, don’t worry about it. That will just waste your time. Since your time is precious, you should think about what you want to do. Sometimes acting as a spectator is the wisest decision,” said Long Chen.
“Boss, I feel like your words are both deep and yet still sound like you’re showing off. As expected of my boss, these are words that I would never be able to say in my lifetime.” Guo Ran raised his thumbs at Long Chen, but then he added, “But I didn’t really understand anything you said, so can you explain it more simply?”
“Ugh, to sum it up, work hard at messing around.”
“What does that mean?”
“Scram! Scram as far as you can scram. Now, do you understand?” Long Chen suddenly leaned in and roared into Guo Ran’s ear.
Guo Ran hadn’t expected this move and almost instinctively summoned his golden battle armor. He flew into the distance.
Just as Long Chen and Guo Ran were messing around with each other, they arrived. All the eyes of the Xuantian Dao Sect concentrated on them. They all knew that this was a tense time, and no one wanted to disturb them.
At first, the profound words that Long Chen had said to comfort Guo Ran had made them nod in approval, but then their words had changed, causing them to look oddly at the two of them. They didn’t know just what kind of expression they should have.
Just at that moment, the projection of the Devil Slaughter Divine Tablet shook, and a majestic divine aura soared.
“The final announcement of the Devil Slaughter Rankings is coming up!”
Everyone’s hearts immediately clenched. Although Long Chen said that he didn’t care, he also stared closely at the tablet.
Chapter 1752 Unexpected Supporters
Although this was just a projection and not the true Devil Slaughter Divine Tablet, it gave off a holy and sacred pressure that made everyone revere it.
The divine light of the tablet was shining on everyone. A vast aura unfurled, but this aura didn’t suppress them, instead it was like a sacred baptism that made people have an urge to kneel toward it.
“This… this is the aura of Sovereign Yun Shang. The Devil Slaughter Divine Tablet really was made by him.”
Long Chen’s heart shook. This sacred aura was something that he would never forget in his lifetime. The image of Sovereign Yun Shang reappeared in his mind.
Although Long Chen had only managed to meet him through space and time, he had been profoundly won over by his aura. In his heart, only a Sovereign was a true expert and someone worthy of his profound respect.
Buzz.
Just as everyone was looking at the rankings, two of the names began to shudder. The hearts of everyone in the Xuantian Dao Sect dropped.
Those two names were Long Chen and Guo Ran. Guo Ran was pressing both his hands against his heart as
if it would jump out if he didn’t.
Their names were constantly flashing. Right now, all the powers on the Martial Heaven Continent were in their own headquarters, looking at this projection.
Whether it was the Righteous path, Corrupt path, or the other various powers, they all had the right to attend the battle of the Devil Abyss and split the battle rewards.
However, this time, there was a great deal of struggle. Countless people had formed suspicions about Guo Ran and Long Chen’s rankings, and some were directly opposing them. Long Chen especially had countless people cursing him for cheating, even within the Righteous path. Those people were praying to the Devil Slaughter Divine Tablet to have Long Chen’s rank removed.
Long Chen could only look down on the people doing such a thing. If his name was removed, then the second place Leng Yueyan would become first place. Did the people from the Righteous path really want the Corrupt path to gain the greatest karmic luck? Their heads were really full of crap.
Although Long Chen didn’t know exactly what karmic luck was, to tell the truth, he didn’t really care about it. Now, he only felt angry at these idiotic people.
This was one of the worst parts of the Righteous path. They focused on bringing everyone else down with them. Sects harming each other was a common occurrence. However, once they faced the Corrupt path, they immediately turned cowardly.
From the Eastern Wasteland to the Central Plains, just how many geniuses of the Corrupt path had Long Chen killed?
He had never hoped for anyone to be grateful to him, but from start to finish, the Righteous path’s people continuously wanted to harm him, constantly slandering him. Anyone would be infuriated, especially someone with his temper.
Seeing his and Guo Ran’s names flashing repeatedly, Long Chen’s eyes were frosty. The white and black in his eyes actually began to merge as if they were undergoing some kind of transformation.
“Long Chen!”
Suddenly, Evilmoon shouted in his mind.
“What is it?” asked Long Chen.
“Nothing.”
