Three Months in Vast Sea City!

In the days that followed, Huang Yun settled down in Vast Sea City.

He was in no hurry to leave. This coastal city possessed an atmosphere entirely different from inland towns—free, rugged, uninhibited, with the salty, damp scent of sea breeze forever hanging in the air.

He liked that sense of openness.

Every morning, he ran several laps through the docks, loosening his muscles in the most basic way and feeling the changes in his body after being tempered by Whale Rubber.

He spent most of the daytime refining Whale Rubber at the inn, refining one jin every four or five days to give his body sufficient time to digest and absorb it. He did not rush, advancing steadily.

Occasionally, he also went to Vast Sea City's Great Soul Arena for a few matches.

Vast Sea City's Great Soul Arena differed from those in Gengjin City and Suotuo City. More than half the matches here were held on the water.

A massive deep pool sat at the center of the arena. Contestants fought in the water or upon its surface, making for an extremely spectacular show, and the spectator stands were always packed.

The first time Huang Yun stepped onto a water-surface arena, his opponent was a level fifty-eight Sea Soul Master whose Martial Soul was a Sawtooth Shark. He moved incredibly fast in the water and attacked viciously, relying on his home-field advantage as he tried to end the fight quickly from the start.

In the end, Huang Yun slapped a Raikiri onto the water's surface. The entire pool was instantly covered in blue-white electric arcs, and the Sawtooth Shark Soul Master floated to the surface, convulsing and rolling his eyes.

The whole process took less than three breaths.

Water conducted electricity.

The range and power of his lightning-attribute soul skills multiplied in water, while most Sea Soul Masters accustomed to fighting underwater were electrocuted unconscious before they even had time to react.

He fought several more matches afterward, all of them ending in instant kills without exception.

The shortest match took less than a single breath from start to finish. He stood by the pool and casually flicked an electric arc into the water. His opponent had not even swum three meters before floating belly-up.

"Cheating!" someone shouted from below.

"A lightning-attribute Soul Master fighting a water battle—how the hell is that not bullying?"

But rules were rules. There was no rule forbidding the use of lightning attributes.

Huang Yun left after collecting his prize money after every match, never lingering to fight more. Over time, a legend began circulating through the arenas of Vast Sea City.

There was a masked lightning-type brat. Never fight him in the water. If you ran into him, surrender immediately. At least you could still save yourself a day's worth of dignity.

Huang Yun could not care less about that.

He fought at the Great Soul Arena purely to earn some pocket money and stretch his limbs, while also testing the performance of lightning-attribute Soul Power in different environments and confirming that the physical law of water conducting electricity was indeed correct.

At the same time, he began purchasing Whale Rubber in large quantities throughout Vast Sea City.

Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Rubber was something one could only hope to encounter, but Thousand-Year Whale Rubber and Whale Rubber that was several hundred years old were not rare in Vast Sea City.

Through several merchant guilds that had long dealt with sea hunters, he gradually purchased nearly a hundred jin of Thousand-Year Whale Rubber and more than ten jin of Whale Rubber several thousand years old.

Although their age could not compare to that pure ten-thousand-year piece, they were more than enough for daily nourishment and consolidation.

He sorted and stored the Whale Rubber according to age, cutting off a small piece to refine every day. This kept his physical body continuously nourished, improving slowly and steadily.

Time passed day by day.

Sea winds blew through the windows, tides rose and fell, and every day Huang Yun repeated the same rhythm of refining, cultivating, occasionally fighting a soul battle, and continuing his purchases.

Before he knew it, three months slipped through his fingers.

That evening, Huang Yun sat cross-legged in his room at the inn and refined the remaining portion of that piece of Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Rubber for the last time.

His eyes were closed as the Whale Rubber's energy flowed slowly through his body. Every inch of bone and muscle was being nourished, moisturized, and reinforced.

Once that warm current had completely merged into the depths of his flesh and blood, he slowly opened his eyes, a flicker of lightning passing through their depths.

Level fifty-seven.

Over three months, he had progressed from level fifty-six to level fifty-seven. The rate of improvement was not particularly fast, but it was solid.

His meridians had been repeatedly tempered by Whale Rubber, becoming broader and tougher. His Soul Power flowed more smoothly, laying an exceptionally firm foundation for breaking through to higher realms in the future.

More importantly, the strength of his physical body had risen another level.

Although the Indestructible Vajra Body had not broken through from minor mastery to major mastery, it was already extremely stable. The golden sheen beneath his skin, flesh, tendons, and bones had become increasingly restrained, and the sense of power in a punch was considerably stronger than before.

The absorption limit of the Spirit Rings within his body had also steadily expanded. At present, absorbing a forty-thousand-year Soul Beast as his sixth Spirit Ring posed no pressure at all. If he refined all the remaining Whale Rubber, he might even be able to touch the threshold of fifty thousand years.

"Three months. It is time to go."

Huang Yun packed his luggage, settled the room fee, and walked out of the inn.

Vast Sea City remained lively and prosperous. People came and went at the docks, while seabirds circled between the masts, crying out.

He stood at the city gate and looked back one last time at the deep-blue sea in the distance. Then he spread his wings, shot into the sky, and flew inland.

During his flight, something he had forgotten for a long time suddenly flashed through his mind.

The Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud.

In other words, the Heart of the Sea God.

He was a transmigrator, so naturally he knew about it.

He had forgotten about it before and only remembered now.

The Treasury of the Heaven Dou Empire held a priceless treasure known as the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud. Entirely azure and translucent, it seemed to contain within it a boundless flowing sea. It had been accidentally acquired by the empire's founding emperor and, passed down through the generations, had become one of the Heaven Dou Empire's treasures of state.

But Xue Ye did not know what use this thing had. He knew only that it was valuable, not what it truly was, and treated it as an ornamental treasure locked deep within the Treasury.

In the original story, the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud was the core token passed down on Sea God Island. Whoever possessed it was qualified to inherit the Sea God Divine Position.

The reason Tang San later became the Sea God was that this thing was a crucial part of it.

If he took away the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud, could Tang San still become a god?

Huang Yun changed direction in midair and flew toward Heaven Dou City.

"Whether he can or not, it will only gather dust in the Treasury anyway. It would be better off in my hands."

He flew at incredible speed, wind howling past his ears as the mountains and rivers below sped backward.

He had already begun planning the details. The Heaven Dou Empire's Treasury was indeed heavily guarded, but with his current speed, combined with Teleportation and the sensory abilities of Lightning Falcon Eyes, he was at least ninety percent confident he could sneak in and take one item.

Besides, he was not unfamiliar with the layout of Heaven Dou City.

Three months earlier, he had stayed in Heaven Dou City for some time and retained an impression of the city's structure and the general location of the imperial palace.

Though he had not personally seen the location of the Treasury, travel journals and folk tales suggested that it was roughly within an independent cluster of buildings east of the imperial palace.

This time, he was going to take a trip into the Heaven Dou Empire's imperial palace.

By the time night fell, the outline of Heaven Dou City had already appeared on the distant horizon.

Huang Yun hovered in the air for a moment, looking down at the brilliantly lit imperial capital below as the corner of his lips curled slightly upward.

"An important Treasury?"

"A treasure of state?"

"I am taking this thing."