Star Gate

Chapter 290: Return (II)

The car swiftly started up; He Yong was in no hurry to follow. He watched silently for a bit, snorted, and ran off to wheel out a motorcycle from behind a boulder.

Yes, a motorcycle!

The engine ignited with a roar. He Yong hopped on and raced off in pursuit!

Do you take me for a fool, little punk? I’d be daft to run for a thousand kilometers! The strongest martial master wouldn’t be able to react in time if meeting an ambush when running for so long. Just come out with it if you can’t be bothered with me, don’t spin this bullshit! You’re just as bad as your master.

......

Inside the car.

Li Hao didn’t care when he didn’t see the old man upon a backward glance. He looked at Liu Long instead. “Chief, are you familiar with the Southern Fist?”

“Superficially. Southern Fist He Yong is known for his superb boxing methods. My father once told me when I was young that He Yong is brave of heart and meticulous of mind. He looks like a brute, but is actually rather shrewd.

“He Yong vanished soon after the rise of the supernatural,” Liu Long rummaged through his memories. “So he made it into the royal family to avoid struggles with the new domain! He was a martial master close to Dominator—martial masters were still very popular in Silver Moon then. I don’t know if he advanced to Dominator before joining the royal family or if it was the other way around. Dominators are feted wherever they go!

“Although the royal family has retreated behind the scenes, they are not wholly without prestige or wealth. They still grasp some family fortune and strength. The exceedingly famous Black Armaturas [1] from years past are still under their control.”

The Black Armaturas!

History spoke of it as an exceedingly strong army unit that had conquered the lands.

“The royal family came into their power through excavating ancient ruins,” Li Hao suddenly said. “Don’t the Black Armaturas sound like the Black Armors?”

“They do!” Liu Long nodded. “They’re very similar—both have invincible defenses and cannot be destroyed! With martial masters forming the bulk of forces on the battlefield in those days, almost no one could break through their defenses. They swept through the ninety-nine provinces and quickly took even Silver Moon. It’s plain to see how strong they were!

“He Yong looks to have had quite a good time of things after joining the royal family. Coming to the province to spar with Professor Yuan is certainly one motive, but he may have other ones as well.”

Liu Long was also meticulous of mind and quite intelligent—it was only Yuan Shuo who looked down on him. Li Hao felt that the chief was quite fine.

“He is a royal representative,” Liu Long continued. “According to He Yong, Director Hou exposing such tremendous strength at the canyon means that the nine ministries will either force his requisition or make the director revolt. If He Yong represents the royal family, he might have the intention of secretly contacting the director!”

That wasn’t impossible either. The royal family wasn’t necessarily truly willing to step out of the spotlight.

A headache started developing the more Li Hao listened. “It’s getting more complicated, this is such a mess! Isn’t it nice for Director Hou to hold down the fort in Silver Moon? Why do the nine ministries have to send him elsewhere. Isn’t that just creating trouble?”

“It’s a normal course of action,” Liu Long heaved a heavy breath. “They’re just looking at things from a different perspective. If you were their general directors, would you be at ease letting an incomparable powerhouse with unparalleled prestige operate by themselves on the border? One who’s refused orders quite a few times? Do you think they can sleep easy at night?”

Hell no!

Hou Xiaochen refusing to go to the central region was an enormous problem.

“So why does the director refuse to go to the central region?” Wang Ming couldn’t help but ask from the driver’s seat. “There might be more opportunities there. It’s a waste of his talent to stay in Silver Moon.”

The trio didn’t understand why Hou Xiaochen did not follow his deployment orders. Protecting the province and holding down the fort here may be only one of the reasons, but that didn’t mean it was all of the reasons!

If he really couldn’t set Silver Moon aside, he could direct more resources and attention to the province from the central region. All might still be well at home then.

Hence, there must be other factors in play that Li Hao and the others weren’t aware of and couldn’t be bothered to guess.

Li Hao didn’t care. At the moment, he was taking inventory of their gains.

Thirty-five pieces of mysterious power stones. Eight hundred cubes of water energy in the storage ring. Wang Ming had collected nearly one thousand cubes from the Celestial Sunflares, and another eight hundred from the three Red Moons that they’d just killed. That made for a sum total of almost twenty-six hundred cubes.

One broken origin weapon, half to Wang Ming, half to Liu Long. Six hundred absorbed cubes of wood, fire, and water for himself, as well as four hundred of metal and earth. These were enormous gains as well. He’d taken six Sunflare level blood pearls too.

Indeed, he’d obtained another three moments ago. Although scarlet shadows weren’t blood pearls, they were the same for Li Hao. It was just one step different in procedure.

Blood and qi frothed in his body and his internal force thrummed vigorously. He was more than ten times stronger than when they embarked on the expedition! The group had left Silver City on August 26, the battle with Sun Yifei was on the 27th, they entered the ruins on the 28th, and now it was the 1st.

September 1st! It’d only been five days altogether, but incredible changes had taken place in Li Hao’s strength.

Teacher's heart absorbed more than one thousand cubes of fire energy and he spent a few decades nurturing his organs. That’s not something I can measure up to. His other four organs should contain at least five hundred cubes, so this means teacher might have absorbed fifteen hundred cubes of fire energy...

That was compared to Li Hao himself! This meant that taking in roughly five hundred cubes would only place him on the same level as when his teacher had yet to absorb energy. Therefore, he fell far beneath Yuan Shuo.

The young man looked at his storage ring and took stock of the mysterious power stones inside his body... A keen light shone out of his eyes. If his five elements could be balanced and reach one thousand cubes each, then he would roughly be on par with the level of his teacher’s organs.

All he would lack then was the aura! If he could nurture multiple auras and meld them into the sword aura, then he might be the next Summoner of Spirit!

I need four hundred of fire, water, and wood as well as six hundred of metal and earth. That’s a total of twenty-four hundred cubes.

There was enough mysterious power if none was shared with Wang Ming and Liu Long. As for mysterious power stones, his consideration was whether or not they could replenish sword energy. Sword energy was the key—refilling it with origin weapons was beyond his abilities!

Mysterious power stones were beyond his abilities as well, but they happened to have thirty-five on hand.

Li Hao had displayed two kinds of sword intent to Hou Xiaochen in order to demonstrate his value, as well as his strength as a Dominator. Now that his secrets were known, he needed to swiftly increase his strength so that these people’s information always lagged behind reality!

“Chief,” he said as his thoughts traveled here. “I still need four hundred cubes of water, fire, and wood...”

Any of these would satisfy him at the moment, and he continued before they had a chance to respond, “We only have two hundred of metal and four hundred of earth. I’ll hold onto these for now—that’s roughly eighteen hundred cubes.

“The remaining eight hundred are mostly water and a little bit of fire. You get five hundred, chief, and the remaining three hundred goes to Wang Ming...”

Wang Ming didn’t say anything as he focused on the road, three hundred was a generous allotment. He hadn’t contributed much in the field. Li Hao should take the most since he killed most of their targets, but the handsome supernatural did want to complain.

“I want metal energy!” It was fine if Liu Long wanted water energy, so was Wang Ming supposed to work with the remaining fire energy? He wanted metal energy!

“I have use for metal energy,” Li Hao rebutted. “Also, you need to absorb some energy from the other elements. It doesn’t matter if that doesn’t result in increased strength. You’ll die sooner or later if you take in too much metal energy!”

“Why?”

“Your organs aren’t in balance!” Li Hao responded. “Stop asking questions, this is from teacher, not me. Go ask him if you don’t believe me.”

Fine then! Wang Ming had no other choice but to fall silent. On the other hand, Li Hao wasn’t the type to lie to him about this. Of course, this didn’t preclude the possibility that he was pulling the wool over an honest guy because he wanted to claim all of the metal energy for himself!

Li Hao was taking eighteen hundred cubes out of the twenty-six hundred they’d collected, but no one felt that it was an inappropriate distribution. The young man made some quick calculations—he would only be missing four hundred cubes of metal and two hundred of earth before reaching the equilibrium of one thousand cubes each.

He didn’t mention the five thousand that the Night Watchers had promised, that could wait until White Moon City. There were always the mysterious power stones if not. Li Hao abruptly opened his mouth and began dry heaving.

Liu Long watched with blatant disgust. Granted, his thoughts of passing the stones through his system were even more disgusting.

The young man quickly threw up a dozen stones. “We have thirty-five stones when we add the three we just got. They vary in size, so if we measure them in units of marble size, we have roughly fifty units of stones.”

Given their different sizes, this was the only way to discuss the mysterious power stones as a whole.

“I’ll take twenty-five, chief takes fifteen, Ole Wang takes ten. Are there any dissenting opinions? Let’s talk it out if there is.” Li Hao was in charge of main distribution as he’d killed the Yama and Red Moon members. Thus, he made the decisions without further ado.

“Nope!” Wang Ming grinned from ear to ear. His greatest accomplishments were not here—they laid in his two advantageous moves when they killed Zhang Ting. Those had created more openings for Liu Long and Li Hao, a fact that Li Hao took into consideration. Otherwise, Wang Ming would not have been allotted so much based on his later contributions.

“That’s fine!” Liu Long inclined his head.

Li Hao took a piece of stone and placed it on the little sword, waiting for... nothing to happen!

The young man’s eyes widened. Was this method unviable, or was he approaching it incorrectly? The little sword had acted on its own to eat the little snake and black shadow that Qiao Feilong’s wife had turned into. Why didn’t the same happen for mysterious power stones?

Li Hao frowned, if this didn’t work, then sword energy might not be enough to raise his organs to one thousand cubes each. That would be very troublesome.

Do I have to... cut into it with the sword?

Energy did not seep out of mysterious power stones. Perhaps it needed to be cracked open for it to take effect.

Being a decisive sort, Li Hao brought his sword down on the stone. A dense surge of rich earth energy percolated through the car. The little sword seemed to stir, but it still lacked the interest to absorb any energy.

1. Latin for armor ☜