Divine Dynasty Official Posts

Xu Gu was dead.

He had died just as expected.

In terms of cultivation alone, he had originally been about Zhou Yu's equal. Unfortunately, he had just been hunted down by a certain "survivor of the Divine Dynasty" and had exhausted a great deal of his essence, Qi, and spirit.

Zhou Yu, on the other hand, had been secretly gathering strength for some time and was in peak condition. As one weakened and the other grew stronger, the outcome was naturally no surprise.

This little group of five had been led by Zhang Ping, with "Min Yao" as his second. Now, both of them had been killed, one after the other.

As for the rest, when the tree fell, the monkeys scattered. They scattered and scattered until they were all dead.

At that moment, Hu Mang sat cross-legged with a mid-grade Spirit Stone in hand, absorbing the steady stream of pure Spiritual Qi within it. The Immortal Weapon Shattering Thunder stood planted in the ground. Perhaps because it had just been through an exhilarating slaughter, the spear shaft hummed from time to time, its spear soul delighted.

If he had not transmigrated to this world, where resources seemed unusually abundant, and found himself in a region riddled with danger, he would never have used a mid-grade Spirit Stone to replenish his spiritual power.

One mid-grade Spirit Stone was worth 10,000 Spirit Coins!

A full ten thousand silver dollars!

But now, after collecting the four people's Storage Bags, Hu Mang had as many as a hundred Spirit Stones, nearly half of them mid-grade.

In other words, a single round of killing had earned back all his "compensation money," and twice over at that!

Not to mention the nearly twenty Spirit Artifacts in those people's Storage Bags. They were no ordinary Spirit Artifacts; every one of them was at least mid-grade.

And they were all lethal Spirit Artifacts regulated by the Heavenly Gate!

Especially the Demon-Subduing Copper Coin Sword that the bearded Zhang Ping had carried.

It was an Immortal Weapon too!

Only, according to Zhou Yu, it was an "imitation Immortal Weapon."

Simply put, it was the Divine Dynasty's own version of an Immortal Weapon, made back then by imitating an "Immortal Weapon of the upper realm."

Its power and materials were inferior, but it belonged to the same tier.

At the very least, Hu Mang had clearly felt that the "copper coin sword" had not displayed its full power in its wielder's hands.

Of course, the same was true of this spear.

It had thirty-six Innate Thunder Patterns. At present, Hu Mang's limit was activating nine of them, and even that required him to be in a state of Unity of Heaven and Man.

Besides the Spirit Stones and Law Artifacts, Hu Mang had also gained nine pieces of Lightning Crystal.

If one piece of Lightning Crystal really was worth a high-grade Spirit Stone, then these nine were worth nine million!!

A complete set of artificial meridians for the Foundation Establishment Realm cost only two million!

If Hu Mang hadn't found a way to "repair his foundation" in Demon-Subduing City, he could have gone back now and said to Doctor Sun in grand style:

Artificial meridians? Give me five more sets!!

In fact, he felt that if he could "rob the rich to help the poor" on this scale a few more times, he could even afford to switch to Golden Core-level artificial meridians.

Mom, your boy's really going to be rich this time! I'll kill a few more people and buy you a custom villa in a Nascent Soul residential complex!

His mother had never been able to forget the Xie Household's ancestral residence in Black Robe Lane and had visited it many times.

But there was nothing to be done. The place was a tourist attraction now, and a Heavenly Gate cultural heritage site at that.

You even had to buy a ticket to get in.

His mother had always been quite unhappy about that sort of "confiscation."

He couldn't do anything about that, but he could get her a replica, guaranteed to be at least as comfortable as the original.

Besides all that, there were various Cultivation Method Secret Manuals, which Hu Mang had yet to find time to count.

As his thoughts wandered, he used the Spirit Stone to restore his Spiritual Qi.

A mid-grade Spirit Stone really was something. In just the time it took an incense stick to burn, his lower Dantian had developed a distinct feeling of fullness, while the Spirit Stone had lost less than a tenth of its luster.

Even after it's used up, the spent Spirit Stone seems to be worth quite a bit if I sell it to a scrap collector. I'll ask Uncle Ma about the going rate later.

Hu Mang opened his eyes to see Zhou Yu walking silently toward him, a bloody human head in one hand and a Storage Bag in the other.

A limping old cultivator with a bruised and swollen face followed behind him.

Seeing Hu Mang look over, Zhou Yu offered him "Xu Gu's" Storage Bag.

Hu Mang accepted it without the slightest hesitation. This was payment for a life—his younger sister's life.

Then Hu Mang's gaze fell on the limping old cultivator with the bruised and swollen face.

The old cultivator hurriedly forced a smile.

"This old man is Chen Sheng. Greetings, Master!"

"You're Routou?"

"Yes, yes. This old man was careless for a moment and fell for that Ghost Makeup woman's trick. Later, Fellow Daoist Zhou found and rescued me."

Ghost Makeup? That beautified female cultivator?

"So, how much are you planning to pay for your life?" Hu Mang asked in return.

Chen Sheng had hoped to bluff his way through, but when he raised his eyes, they fell on the other's yellowed eyes. Their inhumanly indifferent gaze made his heart tremble, and he no longer dared say the words on the tip of his tongue.

He could only pull a long face and say:

"Those people cleaned this old man out. How could I have any spare money left to buy my life?"

"But this old man happened to obtain three Evil-Subduing Divine Thunders before. They should be in those people's Storage Bags. I can teach you how to use them, Fellow Daoist."

Evil-Subduing Divine Thunder?

Hu Mang rummaged through the spoils and found three "iron apricots."

He hadn't paid them much attention before, but looking at them now, he felt a faint chill creep over him just holding them.

Chen Sheng stared at one for a long moment, then sighed and began to explain-

"This object is called Evil-Subduing Divine Thunder. It has the wondrous power to break demonic arts and purge filth, shatter Qi and blast formations apart. When unleashed, it is equivalent to a full-powered strike from a cultivator who has reached the great perfection of the Three Flowers and Five Qi. But if that were all, it would not deserve the name Evil-Subduing Divine Thunder."

"What's formidable about it is that Evil Qi or demonic Qi can trigger tenfold destructive power. Even against someone who is not an evil or demonic being, it can easily suppress and destroy any Divine Ability derived from the Earth Flower of the Three Flowers, or any one of the Five Qi."

Hu Mang's face remained expressionless, mainly because he still didn't know much about the Three Flowers and Five Qi.

But Zhou Yu, a native cultivator of the Azure Mysterious Realm, looked astonished. His expression also grew fervent as he listened.

"If it's so important, why didn't those people use it earlier?"

Chen Sheng smiled bitterly.

"That brings me to the main point. To use it normally, one must wrap it in spiritual power and refine it for half the time it takes an incense stick to burn before the thunder can be raised—that is, before it can be unleashed."

"But this old man happens to know a method left behind by the Divine Dynasty that can shorten the refining time to ten breaths."

"If those fellows hadn't been so practiced at laying ambushes and caught me off guard, I would only have needed to stall for a few more breaths. It would have been hard to say who would win and who would lose."

Hearing this, Hu Mang raised an eyebrow. This thing seemed even fiercer than some of the Heavenly Gate's "regulated Law Artifacts."

"All right. Hand over the refining method, and you can go."

Next, under old Chen Sheng's guidance, Hu Mang mastered the method of controlling it. As Hu Mang rubbed the "iron apricot" between his five fingers, it visibly grew hotter, giving off a pressure that made his heart pound. Wherever it spread, wisps of red light threatened to ignite the surrounding Spiritual Qi.

"Master, stop! If you keep turning it, it's going to explode!"

Hu Mang snapped his five fingers shut. With a sizzling sound, the "iron apricot" visibly cooled.

Hu Mang opened his hand again. A faint smell of scorching rose from his palm.

A black patch had joined the many calluses and scars already covering it.

"All right, you can go."

Hu Mang dug old Chen Sheng's Storage Bag out of the pile and tossed it over. Seeing Zhou Yu hesitate to speak, he spoke up.

Chen Sheng was stunned too. He looked Hu Mang up and down.

He hadn't expected this ferocious-looking "Chan Buddhist monk"-a "demon monk" who clearly even had Demon Race blood-to be so easy to talk to.

"Then... this old man will be on his way?"

Hu Mang sat on a corpse, he didn't know whose, and looked up at the sky. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Since the person in charge had said nothing, Zhou Yu naturally couldn't say much either. Besides, the old man was a "good person" now. Killing him would bring no benefit and would only add to their karma.

So he simply said nothing.

Chen Sheng cautiously took a couple of small steps and found that neither of the two present was paying him any attention. He carefully walked into a nearby alley and found that they still paid him no mind.

The old man's Armored Horse Talisman was nearly wet from being clutched in his hand.

After a while, Hu Mang came back to his senses and said to Zhou Yu:

"You said before that Zhang Ping's group was the greatest threat among the cultivators in your group. Now that we've wiped them out, let's take this chance to clean up the other lone wolves too, then head straight for the Thunder God's Shrine. Your sister will most likely be fine."

Zhou Yu nodded emphatically.

"Let's go. Hmm?"

Hu Mang stood and picked up his spear, but quickly turned to look in one direction.

Old Chen Sheng, who had just left, was poking his head out and peering over. When he saw the two looking at him, he shamelessly gave a chuckle, then came running over in his cloth shoes.

"This old man thought it over carefully and decided it would be better to come with you. After all, Demon-Subduing City is fraught with danger. This old man needs to find one-oh, no, two companions."

"You-" Zhou Yu had just started to speak when Chen Sheng hurriedly put on a solemn expression and said:

"Allow me to introduce myself first. I am Zhou Sheng. Of the Five Qi, I have cultivated liver wood, spleen earth, kidney water, and heart fire. I am a four-Qi cultivator."

"Besides that, I am nearly three sixty-year cycles old and well versed in 108 miscellaneous skills: divination, reading trigrams, discerning yin, distinguishing yang, observing Qi, reading faces, feng shui, reciting incantations, conducting rites, mourning souls, spirit-medium riding, setting bones, adjusting tendons, storytelling, herbal medicine, treating bruises and injuries, dispelling cold and regulating meridians, caring for the kidneys, and so on. You can make use of me for anything outside a fight between cultivators!"

"Furthermore, I was among the first cultivators to enter Demon-Subduing City. I also know its demon-subduing sites and treasure caches in great detail-places such as the Fire House, the Cat Garden, the Demon-Subduing Drill Ground, the Sha-Subduing Commander's Manor, the Evil-Expelling Altar, the Demon-Suppressing Mysterious Treasury, the Rebirth Shrine, and the Tempering Treasury!"

"Also, Fellow Daoist, don't you want to know what qualifications you've gained by obtaining that Immortal Weapon?"

"For instance, wouldn't you like to compete for an official post in the Divine Dynasty?!"