Long Spear Mist Hidden

Not long after Barn broke through to the God-level, the hundred-year garrison mission officially came to an end.

The group returned to the Ice Blade Squad's station outside the Ice Prison Royal City and held a lively barbecue party that very evening.

Gideon gnawed on some roasted meat and asked vaguely, "Miss, what are our plans for the future?"

"I intend for you and Barn to consolidate your strength, and for the others to work hard and see if you can break through to the God-level," Fukaloss said, devouring her food without a shred of decorum.

Barn immediately leaned in, smiling slyly. "Miss, I'm missing a water-element defensive Divine Artifact!"

"Go forge one yourself!" Fukaloss glared at him. "That spear of yours is already a Divine Artifact; there's no need to make another. You have plenty of divine power to slowly nurture a defensive one. Didn't you get a wind-element defensive Divine Artifact before? Just make do with that for now."

"Miss is biased!" Barn deliberately persisted.

"Who told you to become a god later than Gideon? We agreed from the start: whoever becomes a god first gets the big reward!"

Under her glare, Barn immediately shrank back, putting on a pitiful expression—though he was clearly faking it. After so many years together, they had long since figured out this young lady's temperament: it never hurt to ask, and if she happened to be in a good mood, she might just let something good slip out.

Julia reminded them at the right moment, "Miss, shouldn't we also divide the rewards from this mission?"

"You lot are getting bolder and bolder!" Fukaloss feigned anger. "Daring to talk to me about splitting the loot—no, wait, splitting the dividends!"

But no sooner had she spoken than her face fell, and she pulled out three Soul Gold Beads. "This is all there is from this mission."

"Huh? Just this much?" Disappointment appeared on everyone's faces.

Seeing their dejected expressions, Fukaloss felt even more frustrated. She sighed softly and explained, "I didn't expect it to be so little either. I went to the Legion to ask afterward, and it seems we fought too hard during the last defensive battle. The energy fluctuations from the God-level combat were too violent, damaging the roots of the fruit trees in the orchard. As a result, the trees have seen a massive drop in yield over the last few decades. We couldn't even gather a hundred fruits a year, barely meeting the mission quota. Since the mission rewards are directly tied to the yield, the rewards naturally shrank, leaving us with only these three Soul Gold Beads."

The group looked at each other in silence.

Blair quickly offered comfort, "Miss, being able to cultivate peacefully at the resource point for a hundred years was the best reward in itself."

Declan nodded as well, "That's right, my profound mysteries have also improved quite a bit."

Fukaloss immediately lifted her head and announced, puffed up with determination, "I've decided! Everyone will cultivate at the station for ten years to stabilize your realms. Ten years from now, we're taking on a mission with truly generous rewards!"

"Understood! As you command, Miss!" the group replied in unison. Smiles returned to their faces, the stifling atmosphere of the courtyard was instantly broken, and the aroma of barbecue and laughter filled the air once more.

Barn eventually managed to get his hands on a piece of defensive armor—or, to be precise, he made it himself.

Back when they killed the Sanctuary of the Evil Royal City, they had hunted a Frost Dragon. That Frost Dragon had been powerful, its scales incredibly tough and imbued with dense water-elemental cold energy. At the time, Barn had felt the dragon scales might be useful later, so he had specifically collected them and kept them in his spatial ring. Now that he had broken through to the water-element God-level, his attributes perfectly matched those of the Frost Dragon scales, so he found a specialized craftsman at the Heavenly River Legion station to forge the scales into a full set of scale armor.

The entire set was pieced together from hundreds of Frost Dragon scales, pale blue in color, with a faint, icy luster on the surface. Barn put the armor on, and it fit perfectly. As the cold dragon scales pressed against his skin, a refreshing sensation spread throughout his body, faintly resonating with the water-element divine power within him.

However, this set of Frost Dragon scale armor was currently only a decent piece of Sanctuary-level equipment; it was still a long way from being a Divine Artifact. Its hardness was only slightly greater than Barn's own body in his Tiger-pattern Warrior transformation, barely enough to withstand the full-force attack of an ordinary peak Sanctuary expert. If it encountered a God-level attack, it would be utterly useless.

Of course, as long as it was nurtured with divine power over a long period, these Frost Dragon scales would eventually be nourished by that power and slowly transform into a true water-element defensive Divine Artifact.

At this moment, Barn was sitting cross-legged in his room, eyes closed, his body wreathed in faint, slowly circulating water-element divine power.

He was in no rush to use his divine power to nurture his dragon scale armor—he knew well that the gestation period for a Divine Artifact was far too long, often starting at ten thousand years. Some exceptionally gifted Divine Artifacts even required hundreds of thousands or millions of years to fully form.

Barn had only just broken through to the God-level and was still a Lowgod; the divine power stored within him was not yet abundant. In his daily life, he not only had to set aside a portion of his divine power to familiarize himself with God-level combat and temper his fusion of profound mysteries, but he also had to reserve some to sustain his combat and daily cultivation. The amount of divine power he could save each day to nurture a Divine Artifact was pitifully small. If he forced himself to nurture the scale armor, it would not only fail to speed up the process but would instead hinder the stabilization of his realm and could even lead to the exhaustion of his divine power—a loss that outweighed the gain.

Barn's attention shifted to the Mist Hidden spear in his hand.

His heart was filled with anticipation—now that he had become a god, he could finally unleash the true power of this Divine Artifact that had accompanied him for so long!

As Barn's divine sense slowly sank into the Mist Hidden spear, that mysterious space filled with white mist appeared in his mind once again. Unlike during his Sanctuary days, his divine sense was now more refined, his perception sharper, and the white mist filling the space seemed to have thinned slightly. Countless blurred combat fragments flashed through his mind—these were the combat memories of the Mist Hidden spear's previous owner, showing clashes with various God-level experts. Every movement and every attack was a hundred times clearer than what he had perceived during his Sanctuary days.

Barn carefully contemplated these combat memories, absorbing useful experience while silently sensing the characteristics of the Mist Hidden spear.

A day later, Barn slowly opened his eyes, a flash of brilliance in his gaze. He lifted his hand slightly and slowly injected his water-element divine power into the Mist Hidden spear. As the power flowed in, the originally deep blue spear body began to slowly turn transparent, and a thin layer of white mist swirled around it. The mist grew thicker and thicker, gradually enveloping the entire spear until it looked hazy and indistinct, as if it had merged with the surrounding fog.

"It seems the previous owner of this Mist Hidden spear had insights into the profound mysteries related to 'mist' within the water element." Barn extended a fingertip and lightly touched the white mist around the spear. A cool sensation traveled to his fingertip, and at the same time, a faint soul fluctuation passed through his finger and into his mind. He frowned slightly and whispered to himself, "This mist isn't just for blocking vision or hiding one's form; it also has some ability to confuse the soul. It's just that this ability isn't very strong—at most, it could only interfere with a Lowgod."

Barn withdrew his finger and pondered silently, "It's also possible that the Mist Hidden spear hasn't fully accepted me yet. After all, I've only just become its new master, and my compatibility with it isn't high enough. Besides, what I'm injecting now is only Lowgod power. Perhaps only when I break through to a Midgod or Highgod and inject more powerful divine power will I be able to fully unleash its capabilities."

He looked at the Mist Hidden spear in his hand again, observing its changes carefully. He discovered that the transparency of the Mist Hidden spear wasn't a simple state of becoming intangible; it was more like a state of "hiding within the mist." The spear itself hadn't disappeared; it was merely wrapped in the surrounding white mist, using the mist as cover to hide its form while also being able to evade divine sense detection to a certain extent.

This was completely different from the transparency of Linley's Shadow Sword—the Shadow Sword was a product of a special fusion of earth, water, fire, and wind, and it was effective as long as divine power was injected. The transparency of the Mist Hidden spear in his hand was more like an added effect brought about by the characteristics of the profound mysteries, relying on the white mist around the spear to be achieved. If it were separated from the cover of the mist, the spear would return to its original appearance, lose its transparency, and be unable to hide its form.

"Interesting."

Barn gripped the spear tightly, the corners of his mouth curling upward.

"Once my divine power is deeper, I will definitely master you completely."