Chapter 216 - - 214 Spirit Stone_1

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Swish!

The longsword was drawn from its scabbard.

A shallow cut appeared on Fang Shan’s neck.

Fang Shan was scared stiff. He felt his neck, relieved his head was still attached, and then he knelt on the ground with a thud, his face ashen, kowtowing like pounding garlic: “Sect Leader, spare my life, Sect Leader, spare my life…”

Duge looked at the wound on his neck, which was not healing, and let out a sigh of relief. He spoke indifferently, “Get up. Let’s talk business. I don’t take kindly to people playing tricks on me. Consider this a minor punishment.”

“Thank you, Sect Master Wang,” Fang Shan stood back up, trembling and sweating profusely.

Duge sat down on a chair and asked, “How many days has it been since your son left?”

Fang Shan replied, “It has been at least five days!”

Duge fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Did you send someone to follow him?”

Fang Shan said, “Before he left, he took several guards and maidservants with him, claiming that they would send someone back to report their safety upon arrival…”

Which meant they had lost contact.

Duge was speechless, having thought he might find an Alien Warrior, only to come up empty.

It had to be said.

Those who ventured onto the Alien Battlefield sure knew how to survive, sending someone to cause trouble for Duge and then slipping away…

“Old Fang, why are you so certain that I will help you get revenge?” Duge toyed with the spirit stone in his hand and asked, “I could simply steal your spirit stones and do nothing, or just as I did earlier, kill you on the spot…”

“I am a businessman,” Fang Shan wiped the sweat from his forehead, managing a forced smile, “In business, it’s inevitable to face losses and gains. I know that even with spirit stones, the people from the Supervisory Academy wouldn’t go to war over my affairs. I don’t have the connections or the capital to request the help of those prestigious sects. To avenge my son, the only option left was the Seven Star Gate, a sect planning to interact with the secular world.

In these days, I’ve learned about the recent events.

With your abilities, staying in the Seven Star Gate isn’t the best choice. But you unhesitatingly stayed, helped the Seven Star Gate through tough times, and even indicated in the contract that investment comes with risks. Hence, I believe, Sect Leader, you’re different from those people.

Today, since the Sect Leader returned safely from Sky Mist Valley, it’s worth my gamble. I don’t ask that the Sect Leader immediately seek revenge for my son, just that when you confront them in the future, your strike to kill him will suffice.”

He paused, tentatively adding, “Moreover, I am quite proficient in business affairs. As the Sect Leader, you need to cultivate and likely can’t manage the operațions of the stocks simultaneously. If you leave this matter to me, I believe I can outperform Miss Guan…”

Offering a spirit stone not only secured someone to take revenge for you—having nearly had your head chopped off, you still manage to pave the way to become the CEO of my Seven Star Gate…

A qualified businessman indeed!

One should never underestimate a person from the real world!

Duge looked at Fang Shan with satisfaction and nodded, “Alright, I’ll take care of this matter.”

Fang Shan breathed a sigh of relief, “Sect Leader, what about the operations at Seven Star Mountain?”

“You first assist Guan Xuan in managing the industries of Seven Star Gate. I’ll appraise your abilities before making a decision,” Duge smiled and asked, “By the way, where did you get this spirit stone from?”

“I found it,” Fang Shan murmured, “When I was in my twenties, traveling the world, I missed my itinerary and had to sleep in the wilderness. I was fortunate to come across two cultivators fighting. One fled in defeat and dropped this spirit stone from the sky, which I fortuitously picked up. At the time, I was anxious for a while, thinking the cultivators would come back looking for it, but no one ever did, so I kept the spirit stone…”

Well, that’s something!

Two sects combined don’t have a single spirit stone, yet your fight caused a spirit stone to burst out—truly nowhere to reason with this.

Duge sighed inwardly and returned to the earlier topic: “Old Fang, how did you realize something was wrong with your son? Was there anything particularly unusual about him?”

“It was just some small details in his behavior that were different from my son’s. He was respectful to me, could be said to be obedient,” Fang Shan said, “As for anything particularly unusual, not really…”

“Not at all?” Duge prompted, “There should be something different about him, even if not as unusual as a Cultivation Sect suddenly getting into business. For example, perhaps he’s unusually fond of eating, or he’s become quick-tempered, or maybe he’s started doing something more frequently?”

“More frequently?” Fang Shan furrowed his brows and pondered, “If I have to mention what he has been doing most frequently these days, it would be begetting an heir for the Old Fang Family. But at the time, when I discovered he was possessed, I thought he wanted to use my son’s body to leave an heir for the Fang Family, which was my request, so that’s not unusual, is it?”

Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he shook his head repeatedly, “No, Sect Leader, now that you mention it, that’s indeed not normal. To leave an heir for the Fang Family, I gave him over a dozen concubines, and he toiled daily, seemingly enjoying himself. I thought it was just a young man’s lust, but now that I think about it, that’s not quite right.

Even for the young, with that kind of labor, he should show some signs of fatigue during the day, yet he seemed to grow more vigorous. He… he couldn’t possibly be employing some vitality-draining methods…”

“It’s possible,”

Duge’s mouth twitched slightly as he spoke noncommittally.

Fine.

It’s highly likely that his keyword has something to do with lust and dual cultivation.

It must be said that it was cleverly hidden; using cultivation as an excuse, leaving progeny for the Fang family, and naturally cultivating his own keyword. No wonder he wanted to bring several maidservants when he went out seeking immortality and asking about Dao!

That explains it.

I thought so.

Cultivation sects have very high requirements for innate attributes, and if he wanted to join a prestigious sect, it would be impossible without improving his own attributes…

And if his keywords were related to replenishing yang, dual cultivation, or lasciviousness, then the Heaven’s Path Institute definitely wouldn’t be his target.

To perfectly match these keywords, the sects he could choose from were limited to those unorthodox factions where he could brazenly seek women for cultivation practices without arousing suspicion.

It’s also lucky that he had arrived in the Immortal Martial World; if it were the real world, he’d probably be indulging in revelries and frequenting clubs every day!

After all, Pan-Universe Entertainment’s live broadcasts would be streaming to these warriors in real-time…

Tsk tsk!

Stumbling upon such keywords, I myself might not be able to be as unrestrained as Fang Wenle and let so many people watch, Duge swallowed hard, relieved that he had two keywords, as the Alien Battlefield was far too dangerous.

“Sect Leader, is there anything else you want to ask?” Fang Shan looked at Duge, whose expression was alternating between cloudy and clear, and asked.

“No more questions, go ahead with your tasks. I will keep Fang Wenle’s matter in mind,”

Duge waved his hand, dismissing Fang Shan, and then left for the training room himself. With a spirit stone in hand, he sat down to meditate, circulating his energy through the microcosmic orbit.

As soon as he began cultivating, Duge felt the difference; the spiritual power stored in the spirit stone flowed through the meridians in his palm and smoothly merged into his Dantian. The effect was at least ten times faster than directly absorbing the spiritual energy from the air.

Duge soon immersed himself in the sensation.

By the time he had completed one full circulation of his energy, the spiritual power in his Dantian had climbed significantly, and about one-fifth of the spirit stone in his palm had been consumed.

Duge estimated that if he used up the whole spirit stone, he should be able to push his realm to the peak of the Foundation Establishment Stage.

Thus, he decided to ignore everything else and continue cultivating, focused on absorbing the spiritual power from the spirit stone.

If he wanted his Actions on Behalf of Heaven to be effective once again, his target must be a Golden Core True Man, so it was essential to raise his own realm to Golden Core first, otherwise, he wouldn’t even be able to touch his opponents, let alone fight them.

His arms were too short.

Luckily, his body, enhanced by changed attributes, had an extremely high talent, and the cultivation process was not slow, and the spirit stone acted like a mini-storehouse of spiritual energy, making it incredibly convenient and fast to absorb, second only to the effect of elixirs.

What’s more, the spiritual energy stored in the spirit stones was even denser than that in elixirs.

In less than half a day’s time,

Duge had completely used up an entire spirit stone, and his cultivation level had been pushed to the pinnacle of Foundation Establishment, just one step away from crossing into the threshold of Golden Core.

At that moment, Duge also realized why Seven Star Gate and Sky Mist Valley no longer had any spirit stones.

Spirit stones could be considered important strategic materials.

Cultivators from large sects wouldn’t be able to resist using spirit stones for cultivation once obtained, unless there was some other cultivation resource they must trade spirit stones for; otherwise, it was highly unlikely that spirit stones would circulate externally.

Small sects wouldn’t have anything that high-level cultivators coveted, so it wasn’t worth trading spirit stones for.

Moreover, if sects like Seven Star Gate and Sky Mist Valley had anything desired by high-tier cultivators, most likely, it wouldn’t be traded for spirit stones but would be taken by force instead.

Duge looked at the remaining shards of the spirit stone in his palm and sighed inwardly. Seven Star Gate was still too weak!

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