Tribulation of Myriad Races

Zhu Tiandao had left to throw a tantrum while the others started cleaning up the battlefield. Su Yu was under constant protection by Sunmoons to prevent any surprise attacks.

Beside him, Hu Xiansheng was gazing at him anxiously. At the moment, nobody was more worried about Su Yu’s safety than him. After all, Su Yu still owed him a million merit points. Thus, killing Su Yu was the same as killing him.

Seeing how Hu Xiansheng was behaving, Su Yu had the urge to laugh. He said, “Faculty Head, what do you think about the prefect’s trip to the Dual Holy Prefecture? Does complaining do anything?”

“Definitely.” Suppressing the urge to ask for his money, Hu Xiansheng answered, “Our prefect might not be the strongest of all prefects, but when it comes to throwing a tantrum-cough, cough-arguing on strong grounds, he is pretty good at it.”

“The two holy lands have been quite a failure as of late. They have been making a lot of mistakes. Things can be swept under the rug if nobody says anything. Now that the prefect has personally gone there to throw a tantrum, Great Han King and Silk Destroying King will be forced to make an appearance. Those two are the ones currently in command of the two holy lands. As for what will happen…it will depend on what the prefect says.”

Su Yu said with a regretful tone, “I wish I could go there to witness this as well.”

“No!” Hu Xiansheng said, “It’s better that you don’t go. Your presence will only make things complicated. People will definitely start making a fuss out of your grand cycle acupoints. If Great Han King or Silk Destroying King asks you about it, do you tell them or not? Sure, as Invincibles, they might be gracious enough to not care about a refusal. But that is still an insult to them. But if you tell them, you might not be happy with it. That was why the prefect had gone without you. Are the two Invincibles supposed to personally visit Great Ming and ask you about it?”

Hu Xiansheng grinned, “The prefect has his reasons for doing things this way. Without you there, he can operate more easily.”

Su Yu nodded. That was true. That was especially true for Silk Destroying King since he had learned the Time technique. Upon a meeting, what should he say if Silk Destroying King decided to ask about his grand cycle acupoints?

Refusing to answer was a bad choice. But he also wouldn’t be willing to answer. He did not intend to tell anyone in the short term.

After all, opening 360 acupoints was not a feat the masses could accomplish. This was something that would only benefit super freaks with a lot of money to spare. Most of these people would be the descendants of Invincibles. A regular person would have almost zero hope of succeeding.

Since that was the case, why bother? That would only reduce his advantage over others. He might even create some strong enemies with his very own hands.

After looking left and right, Hu Xiansheng softly asked, “Kid, do you still have money? If you do, I can get a few friends and create a long-distance recording device. Everything is doable as long as you have money.”

“…”

Su Yu was left speechless. Why did Great Ming suddenly feel like Great Xia? Money was needed for everything. Did this faculty head set him as a target? Sure, he had a lot of money, but most had been used on Hu Xiansheng. Then again, what he got was totally worth the money.

Su Yu was actually quite interested in that Teleportation Door. Thus, he asked, “Faculty Head, do you really need a million merit points to build that door of yours?”

“Cough…” Hu Xiansheng said, “Not really. But it’s near that amount. Also, that is the crystalization of my knowledge accumulated over hundreds of years. It is definitely worth a million merit points. You saw it yourself. Even a third-stage Sunmoon ended up trapped inside the door. Without the heavy injuries caused by my door, he wouldn’t have died that easily.”

Su Yu nodded, “True. Faculty Head, around half the door remains after the explosion. Since I’ve paid for it, the remaining half is mine. Don’t forget to send it over.”

“…”

Hu Xiansheng stared at Su Yu with a grumpy expression. Did the kid notice that? More importantly, why was the kid asking for the remaining part of the door? That was all he had left!

Su Yu avoided Hu Xiansheng’s gaze. He was very interested in the door. That could serve as an extremely powerful tool for murder. No Mountainsea could survive that door.

Speaking of, the main entrance of his research center had a similar ability. But that door was connected to the very foundation of the research center, deriving some of its power from the Spatial Cutting Room. Thus, it was impossible to use the door outside the research center.

Meanwhile, Hu Xiansheng’s door could be brought everywhere. Because of that, it was a lot more impressive.

Hu Xiansheng said grumpily, “Without a spatial character, you won’t be able to control it. It’s a waste…”

Su Yu said, “I don’t mind, Faculty Head.”

“I—”

Hu Xiansheng wasn’t even asking about his feelings!

With a helpless expression, Hu Xiansheng said, “I can still put it to use after repairing it. Why don’t I get you a long-distance recording device for free instead?”

He was feeling a lot of grief. He had no choice but to spend more of his own money. If he had known this would happen, he would have stayed silent.

Su Yu smiled, “Sure. I’ll be troubling you, Faculty Head.”

Hu Xiansheng sighed and said, “There is no rush. The prefect will probably reach tonight. We have plenty of time.”

The Dual Holy Prefecture was quite far from Great Ming. But since the prefect’s group was comprised of experts, they would be able to arrive quite fast. As for the Iron Cavalry soldiers, they were able to travel fast thanks to their mounts.

Each Iron Cavalry soldier was mounted on a unitaurus. This was a mount excellent in breaking through enemy lines and traveling long distance.

Su Yu was not too curious about the Iron Cavalry. Rather, he was more curious about the golden dragon. He asked, “What’s up with the golden dragon pulling the prefect’s chariot?”

“Oh, that guy?”

Hu Xiansheng said, “That used to be a little dragon. The prefect subdued him and brought him back from the Allheaven Battlefield. He’s quite strong, but he’s not a Sunmoon yet. He’s only a peak Mountainsea. He spends most of his time relaxing in Great Ming. He is only required to pull the prefect’s chariot, but that is something that will only happen once every few decades.”

“Generally, the prefect will only use the ceremonial chariot when patroling the Allheaven Battlefield or on official business.”

That was such a cool mount. At the very least, it was much better than the suanni. Speaking of, the suanni was nearby as well. He was the one who had carried Su Yu here earlier. He was also listening to the conversation. He sensed something and looked at Su Yu. When he saw Su Yu’s expression, he instantly understood that Su Yu was grumbling about him again.

What was the big deal about that golden dragon? It was just a dragon. And that dragon wasn’t that much stronger than him. The suanni race was very strong as well.

Su Yu continued chatting with Hu Xiansheng while absorbing the character intent in the air. As for the onlookers, they were starting to disperse.

***

After a while, the cleaning neared its end.

Niu Baidao walked over and said, “That was a big job. The higher-ups of the Celestial Dragon Sect, Devil Scorpian Sect, Blood Fire Sect, Heavenly Eye Sect, and Flying Tiger Sect operating in this region have all been wiped out. Or to be precise, almost all the higher-ups of the cult in Great Ming and our neighboring prefectures have been eliminated.”

Su Yu asked, “Principal, did anyone from the Six-Winged Divine Sect come?”

“No.” Niu Baidao knew what Su Yu was worried about. He said, “That’s actually good. Their absence means that they do not have the strength to spare for anything else. Otherwise, they would definitely not miss out on something like this.”

After saying that, Niu Baidao switched to voice transmission, “By the way, do you have more heavenly source qi left? Can you lend me some? We need to create copies of your phenomenon. Otherwise, this phenomenon of yours will attract some trouble. Sure, fake phenomena won’t be able to hide the truth from everyone, but at the very least, we should still do what we can to mislead as many people as possible.”

Su Yu replied, “Are you going to try replicating the phenomenon earlier?”

“Yes.” Niu Baidao said, “Time was tight or we would have tried doing so earlier and prove to those Sunmoons that the phenomenon was fake. But it’s still not too late. Lend me some heavenly source qi. I will hasten the process and try to send the final product to the prefect. Those fellows at the Dual Holy Prefecture have not seen the phenomenon with their own eyes. And they are arrogant enough to think that you won’t be able to trigger the laws of the ancient Human Emperor. Thus, we can try to fool them with a fake phenomenon.”

Su Yu’s eyes flickered. That was an excellent idea. Since those people had not witnessed the event with their own eyes, they might not take it too seriously.

He had prepared 150 heavenly source fruits worth of heavenly source qi. And he had consumed 30 portions during his advancement. But 10 portions had also been wasted during the first fake phenomenon. That left him with 110 portions.

In truth, the heavenly phenomenon had not supplied him with that much heavenly source qi. It merely looked impressive. At most, he had gotten around 20 portions from the heavenly phenomenon.

Su Yu grumbled that the ancient Human Emperor must be quite a stingy person. Of course, there was also the possibility that the amount had reduced due to the passage of time. Thus, they wouldn’t need that much heavenly source qi to create a believable phenomenon.

Su Yu did not hesitate and took out a small ball with about 30 portions of heavenly source qi in it. After receiving the ball, Niu Baidao handed it to a nearby Sunmoon without saying anything. The Sunmoon was an old man. He rushed away right away, seemingly in a rush to produce a copy.

Su Yu walked with Niu Baidao as he asked through voice transmission, “Principal, are there any unknown experts left?”

“Yes. The Mountainseas have all been taken care of, but we left some Cloudbreaches and Skysoars untouched. We don’t know if these are the spies of the other prefectures or cultists. In fact, the fifteen Mountainseas we killed might not be all cultists. But they won’t be able to blame us due to the special situation we were in. Not even the various prefectures can blame us for what we did.”

Five Sunmoon cultists were hiding in the city. What were their people doing hiding in the city at the same time? Since the various prefectures wouldn’t be able to provide a good answer to that question, they would stay silent even after losing their Mountainseas.

“After capturing them, make sure to leave a few of them alive for me.”

“Sure.” Niu Baidao laughed and asked, “Are you really going to infiltrate the cult?”

“I don’t know yet. But I can still use the Cloudbreaches to expand my horizons, right?” Su Yu grinned, “I still lack combat experience. Principal, try to kill as few of them as possible. I can use them as sparring partners and witness for myself the strength of Cloudbreaches.”

Lacking combat experience? No problem. He only needed to kill enough people to accumulate experience. Now that he was a Skysoar, Su Yu wanted to test out his new strength.

Suddenly, he asked, “Principal, did any of the dead Sunmoons leave a character behind?”

This operation had actually lost him a lot of money. After all, he had promised to pay a million merit points to Hu Xiansheng. Sure, in that situation, Hu Xiansheng might still have ended up detonating the door even without that promise, but money was something he could always earn. That was money well spent if he could make Hu Xiansheng willingly do so instead of feeling like he was forced.

One should not forget that this entire operation was carried out for Su Yu’s sake. Su Yu was not the type to let his allies suffer for him. Of the money he had received from Marquis Xia previously, he had 1.06 million merit points left. Even after paying Hu Xiansheng, he would still have 60,000 merit points left for himself. That was enough.

If he was really in need of money, he could always collect what was owed to him. The stronger version of the Double Wu Acupoint Fusion Art, the Source Soul Cultural Art, and the upcoming Source Soul Acupoint Opening Art were all golden geese. As long as he didn’t spend too excessively, he would never be short of money.

“There are, but we don’t have the ability to strip the characters from the corpses. We have to wait for the prefect to return.” Niu Baidao smiled, “The first dead Sunmoon who was the master of the Blood Fire Sect and the Sunmoon burned alive by Old Hu were both cultural researchers. Both have probably left a few characters behind. The rest of the Sunmoons were warriors.”

Sunmoon characters could be turned into grottos. But the two dead Sunmoon cultural researchers might not have too many characters. And apart from their main characters, their other characters might not even be in the Sunmoon Realm.

Su Yu asked, “Principal, these are all traitors of humanity. Can I extract a few drops of blood essence from them and check their memories? Perhaps we can learn some secrets from them…”

“Yow know how to extract memories?”

Zhu Baidao was surprised. That was a very rare skill to have.

“Yeah.”

Niu Baidao thought about it and nodded, “Sure. I’ll send you some later. But Su Yu, remember this. You can study those memories or even research the blood essence. But you can’t cultivate with human blood essence. That will make you a devil. And this is only allowed for cultists. For any other human, you are not allowed to extract their blood essence. If I learn that you’re doing so, no matter how big of a genius you are, Great Ming will not welcome someone who has lost his humanity.”

Su Yu nodded. On the very first day he entered a laboratory, Bai Feng had solemnly told him the same.

“I won’t.”

“Good. I don’t want to see you standing opposite the human race one day. There might be some parasites within the human race, but that does not mean that all humans are bad. This applies to Great Qin, Great Xia, or even Great Zhou that you probably dislike. Even Great Zhou has countless soldiers fighting for humanity on the front lines…”

“Due to different positions, some people might cross some lines. But these people are not necessarily evil. You are probably aware of this, but there is a camp of people trying to avoid war with the myriad races. They believe that we should seek peace and delay the war. At the end of the day, they are also working hard for the sake of humanity. In fact, Great Ming can be considered a part of this camp. Our prefect’s official stance is to delay the great war as long as we can. Do you think that our prefect is evil, Su Yu?”

Niu Baidao sighed, “There are a lot of things we must consider when making our policies. Not everything can be solved by fighting a hot-blooded war with our enemies. We can only fight when it is worth doing so. You should avoid putting the same label on everyone just because of their position.”

Su Yu nodded, “I understand. Don’t worry, I don’t have such extreme opinions.”

A lot of people had told him the same, such as Hong Tan, Wan Tiansheng, Chen Yong, and Liu Wenyan. He should not be too quick to put a label on everyone. Some people might not be friends, but these people might not necessarily be enemies either.

Why did so many people tell Su Yu the same thing? Because they believed that Su Yu was still too young and inexperienced with the ways of the world.

Su Yu did not argue. He actually agreed with them. He was not a merit point. Not everyone would love him. It was normal for people to dislike each other due to differing opinions. He wasn’t extreme enough to label anyone with a different opinion as an enemy. But there were some people who he would definitely deal with one day. For example, the Invincible who had attacked earlier.

He was not optimistic that they would be able to find out the identity of this Invincible through this attack. If it was this easy, this Invincible wouldn’t have stayed hidden for so many years.

“Seven characters…”

That was quite a lot, especially since all of these were Sunmoon characters. Not even Invincibles could form Sunmoon characters so easily. These seven characters might be the ones that the unknown Invincible had kept hidden all along. Otherwise, others might find out who that Invincible was through those characters.

But Su Yu had one more question. Was this the same Invincible as the one who had appeared during the battle in Great Xia?

At this thought, Su Yu asked the little furball, “Can you differentiate the smell of different characters?”

“Yes, but I need to enter the sea of willpower and have a meal inside before I can do that…”

Su Yu’s eyes flickered.

“So you can only do so after entering the sea of willpower?”

“Yeah.”

The little furball replied lazily. He was unsure, but he was confident he could do so if the food was nice enough.

Su Yu felt helpless. This was quite a useless ability. If they could access the sea of willpower of that unknown Invincible so easily, things would have been much easier to solve. Which Invincible would allow one access to their sea of willpower? That would never happen.

In fact, even at Su Yu’s current level, he would never allow anyone to inspect his sea of willpower.