(4000) The True Eternal Star

2024-07-09

Chapter 364 (4000) The True Eternal Star

After Wu Kong left, the sky returned to normal, Heaven's Gate Master had just sent the message still hadn't shown up.

As for Duan Feibai and Qi Feng, they put aside their sectarian differences and sat down at Luo Jun's small table. The other disciples from the Sword Saint Sect and the Heaven's Gate, although not sitting together, were all waiting nearby.

This scene astonished the surrounding Martial World practitioners. The Sect Leader of the two sects were about to duel; their disciples, if not on the verge of drawing their swords, should at least have kept their distance. Yet here they were, showing no signs of discord whatsoever. The representatives from both sides were even sitting at the same table, chatting and laughing.

What exactly is going on? Is it all because of that young man in the middle? Does he have such influence that he can get the Sword Saint Sect and the Heaven's Gate to shake hands and make peace?

"Brother Luo, I didn't expect to run into you here." Qi Feng laughed heartily, "I didn't expect your skills to have improved so much in just a few days!"

Duan Feibai was also somewhat surprised by this. Just over half a month ago, Luo Jun was only at the Body Refinement Realm, but when he faced that mysterious expert just now, the aura he displayed was no weaker than his own and Qi Feng's. What kind of progress was this!

"To be honest," Luo Jun had already prepared his explanation, "That day when I ambushed Long Hui, I happened to pierce the Spirit Gathering Gu within him, disrupting his Secret Method of absorbing vital energy. By a twist of fate, all the vital energy he had gathered was channeled into my body. The reason I've been unconscious for the past few days is because my body is filled with vital energy beyond my control."

"Fortunately, the vital energy had been modified by Long Hui's meridians. To make it suitable for his childlike body, it was smoothed out and made very gentle. So, although there was a lot of vital energy, it didn't kill me. Instead, it helped me break through several realms!"

Luo Jun spoke casually, but the two knew that the path of Vital Energy Cultivation was fraught with peril, especially with such a shortcut, which was prone to error. It was a miracle that they could survive enduring so much Yuan Qi, and to even gain an improvement in their cultivation level was nothing short of divine!

"Brother Luo's incredible adventure is truly enviable." Qi Feng shook his head. "We both wanted to take a shortcut, but how come we ended up getting treated so badly back then..."

Duan Feibai remained calm. "What is destined to happen will happen... Long Hui certainly never imagined that his painstakingly planned revival scheme, which he had meticulously crafted for so many years, would ultimately benefit someone else..."

"Brothers, I have a small request," Luo Jun said. "Actually, my Martial Uncle Senior Brother in the sect don't know I'm here... After what happened at Medicine King Valley, my Martial Uncle was worried about further trouble on the road and just wanted to get everyone back to the sect as soon as possible. But I didn't want to miss the duel between the two old immortals, so I secretly ran away and asked my Senior Brother to help cover for me..."

"How can we cover for them?" Duan Feibai was stunned.

"They're from the Hundred Rivers Sect!" Qi Feng waved his hand and said, "One of my Senior Brother once said that if there are ghosts in the martial world, it's either the work of the corpse drivers from Southern Borderlands or the methods of the Hundred Rivers Sect. These guys have all sorts of magical Law Treasure; disguise and clones are easy for them, right?"

Luo Jun thought to himself, "This person's ability to fill in the blanks is impressive; it saves me the trouble of patching things up."

"In short, I ran away on my own, and if they find out, I'll be severely punished when I get back... But I really can't resist participating in this major event in the Martial World world... So I hope you two elder brothers will keep this a secret and not let the other disciples of the Hundred Rivers Sect know that I'm here..."

This was not a difficult matter, and the two readily agreed.

"By the way, since your master has already made a move, shouldn't you go over and greet the old man?" Duan Feibai asked Qi Feng.

"Oh, it's alright. The Old Man's voice has reached us, but we don't know where he is yet." Qi Feng waved his hand. "My Master values his reputation the most. With such an important martial arts competition and so many Martial World practitioners watching, he has to maintain a proper image. It's impossible for him to arrive before the Sword Saint. This long-distance telepathic transmission is already unprecedented."

"That just shows how much your Master cares for you," Luo Jun said with a smile. "He immediately intervened when he saw you were in danger!"

"Tch, that's because you don't understand him..." Qi Feng whispered, "My Master seems indifferent to everything on the surface, but he actually cares a lot about what others think, mainly because he's afraid I'll embarrass him if I lose... Besides, he's very gossipy; his Divine Sense might be watching us right now..."

The words had barely left his mouth when the three of them heard a cough out of nowhere. At the same time, Qi Feng's head jerked downwards, as if an invisible hand had tapped the back of his head...

Luo Jun and Duan Feibai stared at Qi Feng, their expressions one of utter idiocy.

You know your Master is petty, yet you still dare to speak ill of him behind his back... You're truly spoiled and arrogant!

After chatting briefly, they learned that Luo Jun had nowhere to stay, so Duan Feibai and Qi Feng invited him to settle in their respective sects' residences. Although they weren't the first to arrive, as the two major sects involved, they easily secured relatively good locations. The living conditions weren't great, but they were much better than Luo Jun's situation of sitting against the wall.

However, Luo Jun ultimately refused. The martial arts competition was tomorrow morning, and after it was over, he would leave this place to explore a wider world. Whether he slept well or not, it wouldn't make a difference if he didn't get a good night's sleep.

After parting ways with the two, Luo Jun wandered around the city for a while, eventually finding a secluded place. Seeing that no one was around, he took out a black pendant from his pocket. It was the size of an egg, crystal clear, and had a faint light flowing inside.

After using the Iron Tag to enter the Supreme Treasure Pavilion, Luo Jun also checked the contents inside.

After opening the safe, inside was a seemingly ordinary Handheld Box. This thing was an Epic-level Noble Phantasm, whose special effect was that it could hold non-Noble Phantasm items and take them with it through the Otherworld Gate.

This feature is powerful, but it also has its limitations. First, the size of the Handheld Box is fixed, and there is no extra space to store items, so you can't fit much stuff in it. Second, when the Handheld Box is empty, you can put it into the Hundred Treasure Box at will, but once it's filled with items, you can't put it back in; you can only carry it around.

But no matter what, with this treasure, you can bring anything other than a Noble Phantasm into any world!

Luo Jun opened the Handheld Box, inside which were four black vials of medicine and a crystal-clear pendant the size of an egg.

Besides these, there was also a note in the Handheld Box containing information about the injections and pendant. The four injections were, of course, the modified Eternal Virus. According to the note, there should have been five, but one of them was taken by Lao Xu, a sentry from the Yuan Cultivation Society, which caused the infection incident in Shannan Town.

As for the egg-sized pendant, according to the note, it was called the Eternal Star!

The incident in Shannan Town had led Luo Jun to believe that the Eternal Star referred to the virus, but now it seems that it is not the same thing.

Luo Jun stroked the black pendant in his hand. Upon closer inspection, he could see that the pendant was an airtight, transparent, and hard shell, inside which was a semi-transparent black liquid that shimmered with fluorescence. Suspended in the liquid was a hexagonal crystal.

According to the description, the crystal inside is the legendary Eternal Star. As for the black liquid and the hard outer shell, they are merely containers and means for preserving the Eternal Star.

The note left by Gong Shiyue was also vague about the function of this Eternal Star. Based on the information she had gathered, she speculated that whoever possessed it was the entity that could control all the creations of the Eternal Virus.

Upon reading this message, Luo Jun's brain trembled slightly...

According to information on the forum, the entire Wasteland world is barely surviving under the catastrophe caused by the Eternal Virus, and the world is filled with all sorts of monsters mutated by the Eternal Virus. If someone could control all the mutated forms of the Eternal Virus, wouldn't that mean they are the king of the entire Wasteland world... no, they should be called the god of the Wasteland world!

But that was the situation in the past. Now it's different. The Hell Creek Family has used some unknown means to break down the barriers between world rules, allowing the Eternal Virus to spread in worlds outside the Wasteland!

In this way, if the virus can be spread to various worlds, wouldn't the person who controls the Eternal Star gain the power to transcend dimensions?

This includes the Main World!

The enormous ambition hidden behind this will also cause a massive, transdimensional disaster!

However, the note didn't mention how to obtain the Eternal Star within. It was certain that simply wearing it around the neck would have no effect, and Gong Shiyue's note specifically emphasized not to attempt to break the Eternal Star's outer shell. This Eternal Star was a very special state of matter, only stable within a sealed shell and black liquid. Breaking it would cause a massive infectious disaster, and the Eternal Star would completely dissipate and cease to exist.

In short, this is a dangerous item that nobody knows how to use, but if destroyed, it becomes a massive virus bomb.

Of course, to prevent this from happening, the outer shell of the Eternal Star was made of a very hard special material that could not be easily damaged.

After learning about the terror of the Eternal Star, Luo Jun took the thing out, put the Handheld Box and the four vials of virus stock back in, and closed the safe again.

Since not all the items had been retrieved, the token on the Iron Tag was returned to him. Luo Jun then stored the Iron Tag in a new slot, gave the token and password to Aishiliya, and left with the Eternal Star. When he met Wu Kong in the Mobei Ancient City and confirmed that he was far away from Ganzhou City, he immediately used the Dominator's Necklace to communicate with Aishiliya, asking her to take the Eternal Virus Progenitor Fluid and leave as quickly as possible.

Since Wu Kong was able to appear here, it meant he had indeed tampered with the Iron Tag and was most likely able to sense Iron Tag presence. Aishiliya's actions not only allowed her to take away the Eternal Virus Progenitor Fluid but also lured Wu Kong away, convincing him that Luo Jun truly did not possess the Eternal Star!

As for whether Aishiliya will be intercepted, Luo Jun isn't worried at all!

In the natural world of the Main World, the fastest running animal is the cheetah, with Limit speed exceeding 100 kilometers per hour. However, this speed is nothing compared to that of birds; even the ubiquitous swallow can reach such a speed, and the fastest Peregrine Falcon can even achieve instantaneous speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour!

Similarly, on land, Luo Jun could only run at a speed of two or three hundred kilometers per hour on his two legs at most, but the Harpy with wings, even though they were far less strong than Luo Jun, could easily reach speeds of over five hundred kilometers per hour!

Even more terrifying is that Aishiliya's original transformation form, limited by her energy reserves, could only be maintained for a short time. At full speed, energy consumption would increase exponentially, making long-distance flight even more difficult. But now, with Luo Jun's 10% energy supply, Aishiliya hardly has to worry about energy issues and can fly forward with peace of mind!

After Luo Jun gave her the signal and she retrieved the treasure, she headed west at full speed. Now, Luo Jun tried to locate her and discovered that this Ancient Empress had already left Ganzhou City by hundreds of kilometers.

This was also the Luo Jun in her: she was fast and flying at high altitude. Wu Kong, who was in the Northern Desert desert, could not catch up with Aishiliya... unless he really knew how to Somersault Cloud.

Not only Wu Kong, Luo Jun estimated that apart from Ascension Expert, there was probably no one in the Martial World world who could stop Aishiliya!

As for her destination, it was naturally the headquarters of the Hundred Rivers Sect in the Central Province Mountain Range.

The best way to deal with this dangerous virus that could potentially overturn the world is naturally to hand it over to the organization, but Luo Jun, as the mother Eternal Star, has no intention of handing it over.

If it were just a virus, an uncontrollable disaster, then even if the Yuan Cultivation Society didn't try to destroy it, they would at least properly store it to prevent leaks and trouble. But if it's paired with an Eternal Star that can control the virus... then this thing represents not just disaster, but power, authority!

After several months of contact, Luo Jun felt that the Yuan Cultivation Society, as the official Vital Energy Cultivator organization of Zhendan, was generally trustworthy. If it was just a dangerous virus, he believed that the Yuan Cultivation Society would handle it properly, and even if it had to be destroyed, they would have safer methods.

However, such a large organization could not possibly be monolithic. The allure of the Eternal Star was simply too great. Luo Jun dared not believe that handing it over would arouse covetousness. If it were secretly used by someone with ulterior motives, the disaster would likely not be limited to just one or two worlds.

However, this thing isn't exactly a Noble Phantasm, so carrying it around all the time isn't very convenient, and losing it would be quite a hassle... I wonder if there's a way to store ordinary items in Hundred Treasure Box...

But thinking about it carefully, that Handheld Box is already Epic Treasure Item, and there are still so many restrictions on how it can store items. If items could really be put directly into the Hundred Treasure Box, then it would have to be at least Legendary Treasure Item... It probably won't be that easy to obtain.

Let's wander around the Martial World world with this thing for now. If it doesn't work out, try to earn some more money. When it's time to leave, we can store it in the Gathering Treasure Pavilion...

(End of this chapter)