MONSTER PARADISE

661-680

Chapter 661: Huangfu Lin Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After hanging up the call with Yao Lan, Lin Huang returned to his hotel and logged in to the Genius Union again.

On the Stairway Tree, the notice from the Emperor’s Heart had become the focus of the public, and a majority of them believed the investigation result of the Emperor’s Heart as it had never made a false judgment. Therefore, the discussion shifted from how Lin Xie cheated yesterday to how Lin Xie managed to gather 800 points in a day.

Lin Huang did not pay much attention to it. As soon as he returned to the Stairway Tree, he summoned the Mighty Ape and began another round of climbing up the stairway.

The difficulty was much higher for him to get from the 31st checkpoint to the 40th checkpoint as he was attacked by immortal-level rank-5 worm monsters. Lin Huang took about 50 minutes to pass through each checkpoint. Once he reached the 40th checkpoint, he spent exactly an hour and a half to complete it. Upon reaching the 41st checkpoint, it was already 6 p.m. so Lin Huang did not continue, and logged out of virtual reality.

“The difficulty level is getting higher. My Mighty Ape is no longer effective from the 36th checkpoint onward. Fortunately, I still have Tyrant and I should be able to handle it…” As he exited the virtual reality, he looked rather flustered.

He had encountered various extreme conditions on the Stairway Tree. Each level felt difficult for him, and the difficulty was comparable to the training given by Mr. Fu.

“The difficulty level from the 31st checkpoint to the 39th checkpoint is designed for those at immortal-level rank-6 while for the 40th checkpoint required one to possess the ability of someone at immortal-level rank-7. Due to the increasing difficulty, it might be difficult for me to get to the 50th checkpoint…” Lin Huang knew himself quite well. Although he had well-rounded abilities, his physique was much weaker compared to others on immortal-level rank-7 or rank-8. The Stairway Tree did not only assess one’s abilities but took stock of every aspect.

Most people get stuck on the 63rd checkpoint because the use of Life Power was prohibited. It was simply a test of one’s physique, and cheating would not be possible. Naturally, this information was gleaned from Zhao San. He did not ask for the exact information but he knew that if his Life Power was restrained, it would be impossible for him to get through that.

After having his dinner, Lin Huang did not slack. Instead, he continued practicing Army Attack Tactics until it was slightly after 11 p.m. before he went to bed.

The next morning, he logged into Genius Union and continued climbing the Stairway Tree.

There was a rapid increase in the difficulty beginning from the 41st checkpoint. It took Lin Huang an hour and fifty minutes to get through the 41st checkpoint. From the 42nd to the 44th checkpoint, he took about two hours to get through each checkpoint, and only barely managed to get past the 45th checkpoint after two and a half hours.

There was a branch on the Stairway Tree’s 46th checkpoint. It was the third gathering point after the 21st and 34th checkpoint.

After passing through the 45th checkpoint, Lin Huang did not continue. He had originally planned to ascend from a random point on the 46th checkpoint. However, Yao Lan sent him a message telling him that Huangfu Lin had arrived at the Sweep City so he logged out of virtual reality through a crack in the bark in the Stairway Tree.

Since a notice had been issued by the Emperor’s Heart to address Lin Huang’s matter, the others had been putting less focus on him. However, there was still a number of people who checked on Lin Huang’s status every day.

The news about Lin Huang being on the 46th checkpoint already to most of the people at the gathering point.

Many of them wanted to challenge him. Since he was now a popular person, anyone who managed to kill him would obtain more than four million points.

Many of them had thought about this earlier when they were on the 33rd checkpoint. However, Lin Huang did not even stay at the 33rd checkpoint yesterday as he managed to get to the 41st checkpoint. At this moment, he was taking a break on the 46th checkpoint. To many of the other people, it was a good chance to rob him.

Since he was logged out of virtual reality, Lin Huang had no idea that he had caught the attention of so many people. After changing his clothes, he went to the Sweep Gourmet.

After sitting in room No.301 for about three minutes, Yao Lan, Huangfu Hao, and a tall lady in a white top and black pants came in.

The lady had waist-length black hair and she looked pretty yet cool. Although she managed to restrain her aura well, Lin Huang could still vaguely feel that she was intimidating.

Lin Huang knew that she must be the Sweep Alliance’s chief, Huangfu Lin.

Just as he was checking her out, she was checking him out as well.

“Ms. Lin, he’s Lin Xie.” Yao Lan introduced with a smile, “Lin Xie, the pretty girl standing next to me is the chief of Sweep Alliance, Huangfu Lin.”

“Hello, nice to meet you.” Lin Huang stood up and shook hands with her.

After greeting each other, all three sat down.

As usual, Yao Lan was the one who ordered the dishes. It seemed like Huangfu Hao was rather reserved since he remained silent when he met his sister.

Lin Huang was not close with Huangfu Lin so he kept quiet as well.

Instead, Huangfu Lin started a conversation with Lin Huang, “I actually wanted to talk to you two days ago but you didn’t answer my call.”

“Two days ago?” Lin Huang was stunned and immediately recalled what happened back then. “Is that your number? I thought someone called the wrong number so I didn’t call back.”

“It’s okay. Sometimes it’s better to talk face to face.” Huangfu Lin nodded her head and immediately said, “I heard it from Xiao Lan that you didn’t ask for the strategy of the Stairway Tree?”

“Yes.” Lin Huang nodded. “It’s more interesting to pass through each checkpoint on my own.”

“Does it mean that you’re now on the 46th checkpoint but you knew nothing about each checkpoint while you were going through them?” Huangfu Lin asked.

“When I was on the 21st checkpoint, I overheard the strategy for several checkpoints but I didn’t ask for a more detailed description of the checkpoints.” Lin Huang nodded his head and admitted.

“Why do you want to do so? Isn’t it much easier if you know how each checkpoint is supposed to be?” Huangfu Lin frowned.

“Climbing the stairway is like practice to me. It depends on how well-trained we are. That, will determine how far we’ll be able to go. It’s a natural thing. Don’t take completing each checkpoint as a goal and attempt to achieve checkpoints that are beyond one’s ability.” Lin Huang explained.

After listening to what Lin Huang said, Huangfu Lin, Huangfu Hao, and Yao Lan remained silent.

“I believe that you didn’t cheat.” Huangfu Lin sized him up and said. “A person who says this will definitely not cheat for the sake of getting more points.”

“Thank you.” Lin Huang did not thank her for the compliment. Instead, it was because she could understand him.

“What do you feel about Sweep Alliance?” What Huangfu Lin asked had caught Yao Lan and Huangfu Hao’s attention, shifting their focus to Lin Huang.

“It’s good.” Lin Huang had nothing to comment on since he had just joined the Sweep Alliance for a few days. Aside from Yao Lan and Huangfu Hao, he was not close with the rest of them.

“I’m a straightforward person. To be frank, the Sweep Alliance is not for you.” Huangfu Hao and Yao Lan were stunned as they heard what Huangfu Lin just said. This also caused Lin Huang to frown.

“Sis Lin, you…” Huangfu Lin immediately interrupted, “The Sweep Alliance resembles a fish pond in the Genius Union. However, you aren’t a small fish. You’re a fish that has grown up. You can only become successful by living in a big ocean where the likes of the Heaven Alliance, Hong Alliance, and Tang Alliance are at.”

“You’re not strong enough now so the Sweep Alliance can indeed be helpful to you. However, as your combat strength gradually grows, the Sweep Alliance will slowly become your burden. I hope that you can leave. I’ll help you to contact the top alliances in Division 3. I believe they’ll accept you.”

Lin Huang stared at Huangfu Lin and kept quiet for a moment. It seemed like he could discern something from her eyes. It sounded like she was talking about herself… She was supposed to have a bright future. However, the Sweep Alliance became a burden to her due to its limited resources. She did not want Lin Huang to repeat the same mistake.

“Since you’re being honest with me, I’ll accept your suggestion and leave the Sweep Alliance.” Still, Lin Huang nodded his head and said, “However, there’s no need for you to find another alliance for me. I know where to go.”

They then kept quiet during the dinner.

After dinner, Lin Huang returned the Sweep Alliance token to her. On the Genius Union’s page, he tapped the “leave” button and left.

The other three of them were still sitting in the room.

“Let’s go.” Huangfu Hao told Yao Lan. It seemed like he was angry at Huangfu Lin and was reluctant to talk to her.

“You may leave first. I have something to talk to Sister Lin.”

“What are you going to tell her? It’s not easy to find a talented person but she asked him to leave.” Huangfu Hao could no longer bear it and said what he wanted to say.

“Go home first. I have something to talk to Sister Lin.”

After sending him away, Yao Lan sat in front of Huangfu Lin.

“Sis Lin, did you regret joining Sweep Alliance?”

Huangfu Lin kept quiet and did not answer her question.

“Thank you, I know the answer.” Yao Lan knew very well that silence was the best answer to her question. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so reckless…”

“Don’t feel sorry for me. You and Xiao Hao are victims too.” Huangfu Lin shook her head helplessly and lamented, “Sweep Alliance is like a sinking ship. Regardless of how good the captain and the sailor are, they won’t be able to stop the ship from sinking. It’s enough to have only three of us on the ship. We shouldn’t drag the others with us into this.”

Chapter 662: Never Insult the Heaven Alliance! Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang did not know why Huangfu Lin suggested that he leave the Sweep Alliance. However, he knew very well that it was just an excuse as Huangfu Lin had told him that the Sweep Alliance was not a place for him to shine. There were some other reasons that she did not mention. Since she was reluctant to share, Lin Huang did not ask any further.

After the farewell dinner, Lin Huang returned to the hotel.

Sitting on the sofa in the living room, he opened the communication page and studied the invitation letter that the Heaven Alliance sent to him.

Joining the Heaven Alliance was actually a wise decision since he had to achieve imperial-level in three years time. He needed plenty of resources to support him. He would be going onto something big five years later. Therefore, he had to keep improving himself. If Huangfu Lin had not asked him to leave, he would have probably gone after achieving immortal-level to join a stronger alliance.

After thinking for a while, Lin Huang tapped the invitation letter open. He carefully read through the details of the letter twice. He did not hesitate after confirming that not many restrictions were imposed on him. He immediately signed the letter with a digital fingerprint and sent it back to the Heaven Alliance.

In less than ten seconds, a system message came from the Genius Union.

“Congratulations! You’re now a member of the Heaven Alliance!”

The next second after Lin Huang received the message, a notification from an unknown number arrived.

“Welcome to the Heaven Alliance! I’m currently the chief of the Heaven Alliance. My name is Chan Dou. If you’re free tomorrow morning, let’s meet up to talk.”

Lin Huang was surprised to see the sender of the message.

He was familiar with this name. It was not his first time coming across this name after coming to Division 3 because not only was he the current chief of the Heaven Alliance, he was also one of the five strongest geniuses in Division 1 (by the Genius Union’s standard below 40 years old). He was only 28 years old and was now an immortal-level rank-9. It was said that he had killed a crimson gold-rank before.

“Alright. May I know the time and venue please?” Lin Huang gave a short reply.

“I’ll see you at 8 a.m tomorrow at the Heaven Alliance’s 46th checkpoint.” Chan Dou soon sent him the place and time to meet.

Lin Huang was shocked as Chan Dou seemed to have paid attention to him. After closing the communication page, he snapped out of his thoughts and continued practicing his Army Attack Tactics.

The next morning, Lin Huang kept to his regular schedule and logged into the virtual reality after breakfast.

Through the cracks on the branch on the 46th checkpoint of the Stairway Tree, the location of the Heaven Alliance was displayed on Lin Huang’s Emperor’s Heart Ring. It was at one of the branches near to him. After confirming the location, Lin Huang quickly climbed towards the branch.

After more than ten minutes, Lin Huang finally reached the branch where the Heaven Alliance was at.

As he leaped forward from the tree branch, everyone recognized him.

“Are you Lin Xie?!” A squat man was stunned the moment he saw Lin Huang and exclaimed.

The people nearby who heard that immediately shifted their focus to Lin Huang.

The short man soon noticed that something was wrong. A flicker of fury flashed through his eyes, and soon, two daggers appeared in his hand. He immediately dashed towards Lin Huang. “Four million points are mine!”

Lin Huang was startled as he wondered why would they attack him the second they met him. However, when he heard what the man said, he instantly understood why the person was coming after him.

He did not bother replying with nonsense. Soon, a silver glow flashed through the air and pierced between the man’s brows.

Just when he was about to pounce on Lin Huang, the short man’s body became limp. He was shocked, and his intention to kill was unsatisfied. His body immediately turned into pieces and disappeared as he was sent to the first checkpoint of the Stairway Tree.

“Zhang Hui has been killed. You’ve obtained 123,181 points!”

Seeing the crowd coming after him, Lin Huang frowned.

He had to say that the man called Zhang Hui had acted recklessly as he attacked him without thinking twice. He did not even consider whether he, as an immortal-level rank-4, was capable of obtaining the four million points.

The abilities of the people who surrounded him now all surpassed him, and the weakest one was on immortal-level rank-5. The strongest one was on immortal-level rank-7.

Lin Huang would not worry if the assailants were just ordinary immortal-level rank-7s. However, most of the Genius Union members could cross three ranks to fight him.

Seeing four of them charging at him, if he did not use any unique skills, he definitely could not defeat them.

It seemed like the four of them were in a team as they did not fight among themselves.

“Are you Lin Xie? We aren’t going to make things difficult for you. As long as you’re willing to let go of half of the total points you’ve collected, we won’t attack you,” a muscular young man said, “I guess you don’t want to start again from the first checkpoint since it’s not been easy for you to reach here.”

In the virtual reality, the transfer of points was like plunder. The most that they could transfer was only half of their total points. Moreover, only one transaction could be a day as the Emperor’s Heart wanted to protect the weak.

“If I were to transfer half of my points to you, won’t the others mind?” Lin Huang asked with a sardonic grin.

“There’s no need to sow discord between us. The four of us have come to an agreement regarding the distribution of the points. As long as you’re willing to transfer half of your points to me, you don’t have to worry about the rest.” The muscular man and the other three were approaching Lin Huang.

They did not act rashly. They were aware of Lin Huang’s telekinetic throwing dagger as the immortal-level rank-4 man’s head had exploded in an instant. They were unsure about Lin Huang’s ability, so they were reluctant to risk their lives. However, they knew that Lin Huang was a psychic. If somebody attempted to approach a psychic, the psychic could activate less than 10% of his skills. This was the reason why they went closer to Lin Huang slowly.

After confirming that the four of them were in a team, Lin Huang scowled. He did not want to waste his Transformation Card to increase his combat strength at such a place. However, if he did not kill the four of them, he would have to give them half of his points.

Aware that the four of them were getting closer to him, the Transformation Card suddenly appeared in his hand. Right when he was about to crush it, a strong, intimidating aura suddenly appeared behind the quad.

They then turned around to see where the aura came from and saw a man in a white shirt who was gradually walking towards them.

In an instant, the white shirt man had surpassed them and immediately appeared in front of Lin Huang.

Lin Huang’s eyes could not capture the man’s movement at all as if he had teleported. However, Lin Huang knew very well that such a traveling skill was prohibited in the Stairway Tree.

“Hello, Lin Xie. I finally get to meet you.” The white shirt man extended his hand.

“You’re Chan Dou?” Lin Huang guessed.

Both of them shook hands. Chan Dou then turned back, glaring at the four of them who wanted to rob Lin Huang. “So, the four of you are attempting to rob a member of the Heaven Alliance?”

“Heaven Alliance?” They were stunned and soon, their facial expressions changed.

“He’s the chief of the Heaven Alliance, Chan Dou!” A couple of them could finally recognize him.

“I’m sorry. It’s just a misunderstanding. We’ll leave immediately,” the muscular young man apologized and was about to leave.

The rest of them begged for pardon as well and were about to flee.

“It’s too late to leave now!” Chan Dou did not want to let them go. “I’ll teach the four of you a lesson today! Never insult the Heaven Alliance!”

After uttering his words, a black shadow streaked through Chan Dou’s eyes and in the next second, a black mist gradually emitted out of four of their bodies. Soon after, their bodies were shrouded in a black fog. They screamed in terror and completely disappeared.

Seeing that Chan Dou had killed the four of them within seconds, the people surrounding him immediately left as they were afraid that they might get into trouble.

After killing them, Chan Dou turned to look at Lin Huang contentedly as if nothing had happened. “Let’s have some drinks and chat at the subdivision of the foothold.”

Chapter 663: A Conversation with Chan Dou Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The 46th checkpoint of the Heaven Alliance was built on one of the thickest tree branches. The branch, including hundreds of leaves that grew at its tips that covered an area with a circumference that spanned thousands of kilometers. The entire area belonged to the Heaven Alliance.

Lin Huang followed after Chan Dou, but he realized that they rarely met any Heaven Alliance members on their way. Lin Huang felt strange as he remembered Yao Lan telling him before that there were thousands of Heaven Alliance members.

As they reached the end of the branch, Lin Huang could finally see the leaves of the Stairway Tree. It was somewhat different from what Lin Huang had imagined earlier as the leaves that grew on the Stairway Tree were of peculiar shapes. They were not of the ordinary leaf type. Instead, they looked more like islands of various forms. On top of the island, different hemispherical white bubbles enveloped the leaves in the front.

Before reaching the leaves that were wrapped in bubbles, Chan Dou pressed against the bubble, and soon, a small door that was about two meters high was activated. “This is the Heaven Alliance’s territory. Most of the leaves are opened to the Heaven Alliance members. If you want to enter any of the dimensions through the leaves, you’ll have to place your hand that you used to sign the agreement on top of the bubble. The bubble will activate the door. Of course, some of the places are restricted at the 63rd checkpoint, and only the chief and vice chief are allowed to enter.”

After finishing his words, Chan Dou strode into the bubble. The opening of the bubble immediately closed right at that instant as he entered and Lin Huang was blocked.

Lin Huang did according to what Chan Dou told him, placing his right hand on the bubble. Soon, a small, black door was activated, and Lin Huang immediately entered.

Lin Huang then discovered that there was a looming building that looked like the Union Government’s building upon entering.

“The leaf belongs to the Union Government. Therefore, the style of the buildings will somewhat look like the Union Government’s office. We didn’t bother renovating though, and these buildings are used as an office,” Chan Dou explained. Soon, he guided Lin Huang to their office.

In the living hall, a tall man wearing a suit stood stiffly. He slightly nodded his head as he greeted Chan Dou and sized Lin Huang up.

“He’s the person in charge of the 46th checkpoint, Wang Zhong.” Chan Dou gave a brief introduction and told Wang Zhong, “I’ll talk to him. You may come later.”

Wang Zhong nodded and guided the both of them to the meeting room. He then left.

“Please take your seats.”

On the table in the meeting room, Wang Zhong had already prepared two cups of tea. Chan Dou did not sit at the head of the table. Instead, he merely pulled a chair out and sat down.

Lin Huang sat opposite him. He thought that it would be Chan Dou’s clone who would meet him today. However, after he witnessed him killing the four men who attempted to rob him within seconds, he knew that this was his real body.

“Firstly, I’d like to welcome you on behalf of the Heaven Alliance members. To be honest, I was mentally prepared for the rejection when I sent you the invitation yesterday.” Chan Dou laughed.

“I originally had no intention of accepting the invitation. However, there was a sudden change.” Lin Huang did not tell him the exact reason.

“It seems like I’m quite lucky.” Chan Dou did not ask any further. “Since you’re already our member, I’ll briefly introduce the Heaven Alliance to you.”

“The Heaven Alliance was established 783 years ago. It’s the first organization that exists in the virtual reality during the new epoch. It’s also the only genius organization. As Division 1 expanded, the number of geniuses increased. We were then divided into different alliances. As Division 2, Division 3, and the safe zones were being developed, the rest of the organizations started to join in. Some of the sub-alliances gained independence due to specific reasons, and they are now called the Hong Alliance, the Tang Alliance.

“Over the past 700 years, the Heaven Alliance has been the leader among all the alliances in the Genius Union. Privileges are granted to members of the Heaven Alliance. For instance, we use points to exchange items in the Genius Union. All the items are offered at 30% off. As for the chief and the vice chief, they are eligible to enjoy a 40% discount on all items. On the other hand, the chief and the vice chief of Hong Alliance enjoy only 30% discount off. Moreover, many rewards are given to the members each month which are twice of what is awarded to the Hong Alliance members that rank second in the Genius Union. In reality, priority such as choosing the new ruins and gaining access to the ruins is given to us by the Emperor’s Heart.

“Of course, because we’re the leader, our actions are often monitored by the people. Some of the vice chiefs opposed my suggestion and the main reason is that during this period, there’ve been too many comments about you.”

Before Chan Dou finished his last sentence, Lin Huang already knew that many of the Heaven Alliance members did not want a cheat to join them as it would ruin their reputation.

“Why did you choose to stand by my side?” Lin Huang doubted.

“It’s because you’re really a strong person. Although I’ve no idea how you managed to do it, it would’ve been impossible for me to earn eight million points at the 21st checkpoint when I was still a blue flame-level. I won’t even be able to do that when I’m a gold flame-level. Moreover, for a blue flame-level to get to the 46th checkpoint, even if I have the strategy, it’s less likely for me to achieve this.” Chan Dou admitted that he would be weaker than Lin Huang if they were of the same level. He did not want to mention that he might have cheated.

“If you don’t die young, when you achieve immortal-level rank-9, your abilities can be compared to mine or be even stronger. I don’t wish to see such a young plant being dumped to grow in the wilderness and end up dying together with the rank grasses. You’ll only be able to grow into a massive tree in rich soil. I hope that the Heaven Alliance will be the one to help you instead of the other organizations.”

“Thank you for your compliment. I’m just a blue flame-level…”

“This is just your temporary combat strength. I believe that you’ll grow up soon and prove to everyone that I’m right. You must show them that they are wrong!

“To be honest, over the past 20 to 30 years, we usually recruit those who are higher than immortal-level rank-6 or rank-7. It’s less likely that we’ll recruit those who are weaker than immortal-level rank-3. Most of the talented immortal-level rank-1 to rank-3s will typically be recruited by the Hong Alliance, the Tang Alliance, and the rest. They’ve been expanding all these years as the immortal-level of low ranks have leveled up to higher levels. However, those with strong combat strength in our alliance have left, and the number of people is decreasing.

“I realize that this is the downside since I took over the Heaven Alliance. However, I’ve no idea how to solve this issue. I hope that you can do something good for the Heaven Alliance. When the seniors see that the newbie is growing, we can then bring in new blood into the Heaven Alliance, so that the alliance can grow stronger…”

After having chatted with Lin Huang for more than half an hour, he was the one who ended up talking most of the time whereas Lin Huang listened to him. He had told him about many of their glorious achievements in the past, and about the challenge that they were facing right now as well as the Heaven Alliance’s vision. They even talked about the disasters that could probably happen in five years and some topics that were not related to the Heaven Alliance.

“I wanted to meet you as I’d like to know what kind of person you were. Now, I got to see you in the flesh. Despite being different from what I imagined, I’m satisfied with you.” More than half an hour later, Chan Dou finally got up from his seat. “I wish that you can build a sense of belonging in the Heaven Alliance and treat it like your home.

“As for the new member reception, I’ll pass it to Wang Zhong. If you’ve any doubts, you may ask him.” Chan Dou patted Lin Huang’s shoulder and said, “If you encounter any problems that you can’t solve, you may directly contact me since you already have my contact number.”

Chapter 664: Betting Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Wang Zhong was a muscular man, and he was at least 1.95 meters tall. There was a green shadow on his face after shaving, and he had a serious look on his face. His combat strength was on immortal-level rank-7, and he was the person in charge of the 46th checkpoint of the Heaven Alliance subdivision.

“Most of the Heaven Alliance members are at the foothold of the 55th checkpoint. Only a small number of us are on the 46th checkpoint. Including you and I, there’re a total of 28 people.” Wang Zhong pretty much explained why the area was so quiet.

“Considering that you might stay at the 46th checkpoint for a long period of time, I’ll bring you around so that you can familiarize yourself with the environment.” Wang Zhong did not despise Lin Huang though. He was just straightforward as he felt that it was less likely that Lin Huang could make a breakthrough to the 55th checkpoint in a short span of time.

Lin Huang knew himself very well. With his current ability, getting to the 50th checkpoint was a challenge to him, let alone reaching the 55th checkpoint. As for any levels below the 55th checkpoint, the nearest gathering point for the humans was the 46th checkpoint.

Despite Lin Huang not being able to understand his facial expressions, he was somehow a responsible man. He spent the entire morning bringing him around so that he could familiarize himself with the environment. He answered all of Lin Huang’s questions when they were on their way, and he explained everything in detail. It seemed like he had nothing to hide.

“On the 46th checkpoint, the strongest alliance is the Hong Alliance, followed by the Tang Alliance. Our overall ability is on par with the Divine Alliance. We are ranked third, and it’s a fierce fight.”

While they were having their lunch, Wang Zhong roughly told him the situation of their competitors.

“Under normal circumstances, the majority of them in the checkpoints below the 55th checkpoint won’t get the Heaven Alliance members into trouble. However, there’s an exclusion. Also, your condition is rather special. The people from the Hong Alliance and Tang Alliance might probably challenge you and make use of you to achieve their goals. The Divine Alliance members are more evil as they’ll deliberately trigger you so that you’ll bet on a fight. They can then get points from you. Don’t get cheated if this happens to you. Just contact me in the first place. I’ll get it done.”

“I know that you’re a supreme genius and you aren’t weak. However, everyone on the Stairway Tree is geniuses. Those who are on immortal-level rank-6 are on par with immortal-level rank-9s. Moreover, there are quite a number of immortal-level rank-6s at the 46th checkpoint.” Wang Zhong looked at Lin Huang with a serious expression and advised, “I’d suggest using the points as soon as possible. Otherwise, wherever you go, you’ll look like a tasty lamb on the grilling rack releasing the fragrance of meat. A majority of them won’t be able to obtain more than four million points in a year at that checkpoint. If I weren’t a member of the Heaven Alliance, I might’ve attacked you. If you can’t think of anything to buy, you can choose to buy some ancient relics or convert the points to Life Crystals.”

“I’ll use it within a day or two.” Lin Huang nodded. He knew that the number of points he had would definitely get him into trouble. Therefore, he had to spend some time listing out the items that he needed and use up whatever points he had.

One thing that Lin Huang was not aware of because he was on the 46th checkpoint the whole morning was that almost everyone in the Genius Union knew that he had joined the Heaven Alliance.

It was because somebody had taken a video of Chan Dao killing the four robbers this morning and posted it in the Genius Union forum. Many of the passersby became Chan Dou’s fans after he said, “Never insult the Heaven Alliance!”

“He’s so powerful! Chan Dou is my idol from today onwards!”

“Idol, I want a baby with you!”

“Damn, why doesn’t the chief of the Hong Alliance have such an ability to show off in public?”

“Bro Chan V587, I want a baby with you too. @Chan Dou.” The person who sent this message was the chief of Hong Alliance, Zhu Hong. Aside from posting a comment, she even mentioned Chan Dou in her comment and attracted many people’s attention.

“The goddess is here. Let’s switch our focus to our goddess!”

In just a short while, Chan Dou replied: “Sis Hong, are you serious? (Drooling)”

His message had caught many people’s attention as well, stirring up the crowd.

“It’s a gone case. Love is blind!”

“Are the Heaven Alliance and the Hong Alliance going to consolidate?!”

However, Zhu Hong’s reply soon threw cold water on the hot topic: “I’m just kidding. (Face with stuck-out tongue)”

Chan Dou replied promptly, and there were no words in the message. There was only an emoji: “(Frown)”.

Interrupted by Chan Dou and Zhu Hong, the people had no further concern about Lin Huang’s issue. However, from the video, everybody knew that ‘Lin Xie’ had joined the Heaven Alliance.

Following this bold statement, aside from few of the top alliances, the rest of the alliances no longer attempted to steal his points. Chan Dou’s stance was evident as he welcomed Lin Xie at the 46th checkpoint. He indicated that Lin Xie was important to him.

Since Chan Dou had shown up to attack them, even some of the influential members had no guts to assault him with a sneak attack. They only dared to fight him face to face because even if the sneak attack were successful, the extra four million points would earn them a higher ranking on the leaderboard. Then, Chan Dou could easily find out who had attacked, and nobody dared to offend him.

However, if they were to fight him face to face, as long as Lin Xie accepted the battle, he would lose all the points to them in public. Chan Dou could then not do anything to them.

After lunch, Wang Zhong intentionally reminded him, “Don’t accept any challenges.” Lin Huang then left the Heaven Alliance territory and headed towards the Stairway Tree to prepare to continue climbing the Stairway Tree.

On the tree branches, no one attempted to attack Lin Huang as when they had first met him. Apparently, Chan Dou’s attack intimidated many people.

Many of them purposely avoided Lin Huang. Although four million points meant a lot to them, they did not want Chan Dou to send them to the first checkpoint.

However, as expected by Wang Zhong, not all of them were afraid of Chan Dou.

A slovenly immortal-level rank-6 soon blocked Lin Huang’s way. He knew nothing about aesthetics as he was dressed like a gangster. He seemed older than 40 years old (although he was actually below 40). Not only was he wearing earrings, but he also had nose rings as well. Nobody knew if there were other rings beneath his clothes.

“Aren’t you the well-known Lin Xie who ranks second on the leaderboard?” The man cackled evilly.

“What’s wrong? Please get out of the way.” Lin Huang knew that trouble was here.

“I’d like to play a game with you…”

Lin Huang did not wait for him to continue and interrupted, “I’m sorry. I’m not interested in men. Please look for someone else.”

“I mean let’s make a bet!” The man with the piercings got angry and immediately revealed his actual intention.

“Oh, you want to make a bet. Can’t you say it clearly? You said that you want to play a game with me. How the f*ck would I know what game you want to play?” Lin Huang acted like he was shocked.

“Do you have the guts to accept?!”

“No, I’m not interested,” Lin Huang rejected.

Seeing he was about to swear at him again, he said, “I have more than 8.3 million points now. If you want to place a bet, collect eight million points first. I don’t count odd points. Once you’ve collected enough points, I’ll give you a chance to have a life-and-death fight with me. Anyone who loses the fight will have to start again from the first checkpoint and surrender half of their total points. If you don’t have enough points, I’ll give you the time to collect them. At 6 p.m., I’ll accept your challenge here. If you fail to collect the points by 6 p.m., there’s no need for you to come here. Otherwise, I’d have to look for our chief to get the remaining points from you.”

“Lin Xie, I’ve just recorded what you said. Please keep your promise. Otherwise, you’re not the only one who’ll feel embarrassed, but the entire Heaven Alliance will be humiliated,” the man with the piercings said with a wry smile.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be here at 6 p.m. sharp. After this, don’t ever attempt to challenge me because I’ll use up all the points tonight. Collect the points if you want to challenge me!”

Chapter 665: The Person Who Wears Earrings on His Nose

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

In the afternoon, Lin Huang made a breakthrough from the 46th to the 48th checkpoint at the Stairway Tree five and a half hour ago. Soon, he returned to the human foothold on the 46th checkpoint.

The rule of the Stairway Tree was that the checkpoints that they had cleared would not be reset as long as one did not die and leave the Stairway Tree. Therefore, he would not be able to go through the checkpoints he had already cleared again regardless of whether he was climbing up or down the tree.

Lin Huang only found out about this after he heard about it from Zhao San so his plan to return to the previous checkpoints to practice Army Attack Tactics under extreme conditions would not work. He would only be able to restart his progress from the first checkpoint if he was killed or if he exited the Stairway Tree so it did not take him too long to return to the 46th checkpoint.

At 5.45p.m., Lin Huang appeared where to promised to be at this afternoon.

His appearance caught the attention of many people because the crowd thought he would not have the guts to show up.

There were quite a number of immortal-level rank-6 people on the 46th checkpoint. Those who were at immortal-level rank-6 in the Genius Union were capable of going against ordinary immortal-level rank-9 monsters. Some of them even managed to kill the immortal-level rank-9 monsters they went up against.

Lin Huang’s combat strength was only on the blue flame-level but many of them doubted it since he dared to provoke those at immortal-level rank-6. Most of the people present figured that he had a trump card but nobody knew what it was.

The people discussed this among themselves. “Lin Xie actually had the guts to show up. I wonder what he has on hand.”

“I’ve heard that he’s taken control of a powerful demigod relic though I’m unsure if it’s true.”

“Even if he’s able to control it, he can probably only use it to attack once. To control a demigod relic is difficult, even for those on the imperial-level. With his combat strength as a blue flame-level, the fact that he could even use it a single time was amazing. If he managed to kill the first challenger with his demigod relic, what about the rest of the challengers? Wouldn’t it be beneficial to them? I don’t think he has a demigod relic as a trump card. Perhaps it’s a skill he can use repeatedly.”

Despite there being people who disagreed with it, most of them who were present felt that Lin Huang had a demigod relic up his sleeves.

When it was almost six in the evening, the man with piercings from the Divine Alliance and the rest of the challengers arrived.

The few of them finally managed to collect eight million points after putting in quite a large amount of effort.

They knew very well that Lin Huang probably had something up his sleeves since he had the guts to show up so they prepared themselves well before they came.

Lin Huang’s invitation to fight them attracted everybody’s attention, not just those on the 46th checkpoint. Many of the people in different checkpoints knew about this battle because those who were present did not only post it in the Genius Union’s forum, they even started a live video of the battle.

Wang Zhong had logged out after entertaining Lin Huang in the afternoon, and it was already 6.p.m when he found out about this. He immediately logged in to Genius Union and rushed to the battle.

“Lin Xie, I’ve told you this morning specifically not to accept anyone’s challenge. Why can’t you control yourself?” Wang Zhong frowned. There were a few live videos now but he had no choice but to stop the fight since he promised Chan Dou that he would take good care of Lin Xie.

He turned back and looked at the man with piercings. “Punk, how dare you! An immortal-level rank-6 group teaming up to bully someone at the blue flame-level? Doesn’t the Divine Alliance feel embarrassed? If you actually want to fight him, I’ll entertain you instead!”

The man with piercings did not bother with Wang Zhong at all. Instead, he smiled at Lin Huang. “I didn’t know that this was your intention. You pretend to invite us and then ask this guy named Wang to stop us.”

“You’re thinking too much. Since I’ve accepted your challenge, I’m naturally capable of sending you back to the first checkpoint.” After uttering those words, Lin Huang looked at Wang Zhong and said, “Brother Wang, avoiding them is not the way to solve this problem. Killing them is the only way I know of that can solve this matter. The chief once said to never insult the Heaven Alliance. Anybody who dares to extend their claws and attack the Heaven Alliance will have to face us as we chop off their claws to teach them a lesson.”

After listening to what Lin Huang had to say, utter shock flashed through Wang Zhong’s eyes. Then, as his face turned serious, he asked, “How confident are you to win this fight?”

“I’m 100% confident!” Lin Huang grinned.

“I know that they’re prepared for this.” Wang Zhong was still worried.

“I know they are.” Lin Huang nodded. “Brother Wang, please do me a favor and be the judge.”

“Hey! Isn’t it unfair to let someone from the Heaven Alliance be the judge?” The man with piercings shouted when he overheard their conversation.

“There are so many people here, and there are live videos as well. Moreover, it’s a battle to the death. Won’t the one who survivor and the one who dies be clear?” Lin Huang laughed. “I asked Brother Wang to be the judge so that he can verify your strength to see if you’re qualified to challenge me. Also, he can be a witness to the signing of the agreement for our battle to the death.”

“I’ve said this before, anyone who has eight million points can challenge me. Brother Wang, please check if these few challengers have enough points. Otherwise, send them right back to the first checkpoint.” After listening to Lin Huang, two men standing behind the man with piercings immediately walked back to the crowd.

Wang Zhong glanced at the two of them but held his tongue. He began checking the points for the remaining four challengers. The page where their points were recorded popped up in front of him. They had more than eight million points and their four names were indeed on the leaderboard. They were ranked from the third to sixth place respectively.

After the check was complete, Wang Zhong nodded his head at Lin Huang and said, “There’s no problem with their points.”

“Let’s start signing the agreement then.”

Wang Zhong projected the agreement in front of them. It contained within it the basic provisions of the Stairway Tree’s agreement for a fight to the death. There were no additional rules. After showing both parties the provisions and confirming that there were no other problems, both parties signed their name and put down their fingerprints.

“Who’s going to be the first one to challenge me?” After signing the agreement, Lin Huang looked at the four of them with a smile.

Four of them exchanged glances with each other. All of them looked hesitant.

The first one to challenge him would be exposed to a higher risk since nobody knew what Lin Huang had up his sleeves. Despite the fact that the four of them had prepared themselves earlier, they were still unwilling to be the first one to challenge him. However, they knew that if the first person won the fight, the rest of the challengers would have no chance of challenging him since Lin Xie would be sent back to the first checkpoint after his death. As this thought ran through their heads, the four of them struggled with making a choice.

“Hey! The person with earrings on his nose. Aren’t you’re the one who was shouting in excitement this morning? Don’t you have the guts to go first?” Lin Huang teased. “Just admit defeat if you don’t want to fight. I’ll just take four million points and you won’t be sent back to the first checkpoint. Isn’t it a win-win situation?” Lin Huang insulted, causing the crowd to burst into laughter.

‘Damn it! It’s not a win-win situation, and these aren’t earrings!’ The man with piercings thought to himself.

Since Lin Huang insulted him, he had no choice but to stand out from the rest since the battle was broadcast live. The people in the Genius Union would definitely laugh at him if he was afraid of Lin Huang at this moment.

“Hmph, sharp-tongued boy! I’m interested to see if your abilities are as strong as your mouth!”

Chapter 666: Brother Lin Has No Mercy but Many Cannons! Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Standing on the 46th checkpoint branch of the Stairway Tree, Lin Huang and the man with piercings stood to face each other. Both of them were standing about 30 meters away from each other while the rest of the people, including the three challengers stood aside.

In an area that was thousands of meters in circumference, only Lin Huang, the man with piercings, and Wang Zhong who was the judge stood there.

“Are you ready?” Wang Zhong frowned and asked Lin Huang after the man with piercings took out two one-handed axes while he did nothing.

“Please wait a moment.” After uttering those words, Lin Huang gazed upon the man with piercings, the three other challengers, and the rest of the people. He grinned. “Aren’t you guys curious about what’s my trump card is? I’ll reveal it now…”

As he said that, a black door that was about three meters high with intricate golden patterns carved into it gradually appeared before Lin Huang. As if controlled by Telekinesis, something appeared and lingered in mid-air, and the muzzle of the cannon pointed directly at the man with piercings.

Most of the people could recognize the item at first glance.

“I-is that a God Crasher?!”

“How could Lin Xie get a God Crasher? That’s a demigod-level item!”

“I think Zhou Huai is in trouble. He’ll definitely be sent back to the first checkpoint if he’s attacked by the God Crasher.”

“It’s uncertain. Though the God Crasher is powerful, nobody knows if he can even hit his target.”

Zhou Huai was the punk’s real name. Since he dressed in a slovenly manner, the people called him a punk. Then, as his nickname spread beyond the Divine Alliance, everybody thought it matched him well so people began addressing him this way. Only a few of them would call his by his real name.

Seeing Lin Huang take out the God Crasher, Zhou Huai’s expression changed. Soon, a sinister laugh was heard as he said to Lin Huang, “I thought you’d have something incredible. It’s just a God Crasher. You’re doomed if your first hit misses your target!”

“Now, whoever told you that I only have one?” Lin Huang smirked as he took out taking out his second God Crasher.

“Two God Crashers…” Zhou Huai’s face turned serious.

“Nobody knows who the winner is now,” many of them who were watching the live video said.

However, after taking out the second God Crasher, he still did not signal Wang Zhong that he was ready. Instead, he sniggered and took out a third God Crasher…

Seeing the appearance of the third God Crasher, Zhou Huai’s face turned grave.

The crowd who were watching the livestream no longer had faith in him. If the three God Crashers failed to hit Zhou Huai even once, Lin Xie would be fated to lose the fight.

As the judge, Wang Zhong seemed to be quite relaxed.

Lin Huang smiled as he looked at Zhou Huai and teased, “You can still give up now.”

“Even if you have three God Crashers, it doesn’t mean you’ll win the fight!” Zhuo Huai was being stubborn.

“Is that so?” Lin Huang frowned. “What if I have a fourth one?”

After saying that, another God Crasher appeared in front of Lin Huang.

“Damn, four God Crashers! Lin Xie must be the Union Government Armed Forces leader’s son!”

Zhou Huai’s lips were twitching. He hated himself for being stubborn. Otherwise, Lin Xie might not have taken out the fourth God Crasher.

“It seems like four God Crashers are still not enough for you…” Naturally, Lin Huang knew that Zhou Huai was dying inside but he still continued piling the stress on him. “What if I have… Five God Crashers?”

The crowd no longer knew what to say. Was he trying to show off his wealth or his background?

“If five isn’t enough… I still have a sixth one!” Just as he said that, he took out his final God Crasher. “I think six should be enough since you’re just immortal-level rank-6. If you were someone at immortal-level rank-9, I don’t mind taking out another three God Crashers.”

Seeing Lin Huang continuously take out six God Crashers, the screens showing the livestream was about to explode.

“Brother Lin has no mercy but many cannons!”

“It’s a group of idiots! They actually thought that Lin Xie was weak but he’s actually the king of cannons. He’ll shoot you in the face!”

“I’d like to bet five credit points! The head of the second artillery corps must be the one backing him!”

…

At the 63rd checkpoint of the Stairway Tree, a few of the seniors were paying attention to the fight as well.

Since it was a battle between the Heaven Alliance and Divine Alliance that even involved Lin Xie who was previously the focus of the entire Genius Union, they were curious about his performance.

“He’s doing pretty well. Looks like me when I was younger.” Seeing Lin Huang take out six God Crashers, Chan Dou gave him a thumbs up in front of the screen.

Zhu Hong, Hong Meng’s chief paid close attention to the battle as well. She fixed her gaze on Lin Huang as if something had dawned on her. “Too bad I won’t be able to witness his true abilities… I somehow feel that he’s intentionally using the God Crashers to hide his true abilities?”

Zhong Liyan, the Divine Alliance’s chief’s face turned grave as he stared at the video. He thought that they would definitely win the battle and finally show off to the Heaven Alliance. However, after seeing the six God Crashers, he knew that the situation had changed. Instead, it was as if he was sending his face out for others to slap.

…

In the live video, six God Crashers appeared before Lin Huang, and they were arranged in a circle measuring about one meter. The black cannon muzzles all took aim at Zhou Huai who had now already lost his fighting spirit.

“I’m ready.” Lin Huang nodded his head at Wang Zhong. He then looked at Zhou Huai and said, “Before it begins, you still have time to give up.”

Zhou Huai shot Lin Huang a deadly stare and nodded his head at Wang Zhong. “Let’s begin.”

“Counting down. 3, 2, 1, start!”

The moment Wang Zhong’s voice was heard, Zhou Huai immediately rushed toward him like a phantom.

Lin Huang remained calm. He immediately shifted the direction of one of the muzzles and soon, red flares could be seen shooting out of it, completely shrouding Zhou Huai in it.

At the next moment, the second God Crasher’s muzzle behind Lin Huang suddenly shifted its aim and red flares flew past his body.

When that happened, Lin Huang frowned as he willed the third God Crasher to move to the left and shot red flares into the sky, flying at lightning speed.

As the flames flickered, a groan that lasted less than a second was heard.

“Zhou Huai is killed. You’ve obtained 4,135,186 points!”

The battle lasted for less than two seconds. Many of them could not even see Zhou Huai’s movement at all. They could only see Lin Huang launched the three attacks before Zhou Huai lost.

Only Wang Zhong and a few of them knew what had really just happened.

Humans were not allowed to fly or teleport at the Stairway Tree, and Zhou Huai spent many of his points in exchange for the two dimensional relics he had with him. However, the relics were consumed when Lin Huang made his first two attacks. Only the third attack struck him.

Wang Zhong was puzzled that Lin Huang actually managed to sense Zhou Huai’s position faster than him before accurately launching a rapid attack.

Naturally, Chan Dou and the rest noticed something strange. However, nobody had expected Lin Huang to use his territory before the battle. They only thought that Lin Huang had extraordinary sensory abilities.

Once Zhou Huai was killed in that split second, Lin Huang glanced at the remaining three challengers. He did not request to continue. Instead, he requested, “I want to take a 20 minutes break before moving on to the second battle.”

Many of them were puzzled when they heard Lin Huang’s request.

However, Lin Huang did not explain anything as he walked toward Wang Zhong. He then took out several molten crystals to recharge the energy used by the three God Crashers.

“Isn’t it against the rules to do so?” one of the challengers asked. “If Lin Xie recharged the God Crashers after every battle, we would have no way to win the fight.”

“Didn’t you read the agreement for our battle to the death that you just signed? If it’s a continuous fight, the person who’s challenged is allowed to take a break after every fight. They’re allowed to have an hour for their break at most.” Lin Huang frowned. “It’s not an additional rule. It exists in the Stairway Tree’s basic provisions.”

The challengers then immediately tapped on their letter of challenge to fact-check this information. Soon, they saw the rule that Lin Huang had just mentioned, and their face instantly turned grave.

After about 15 minutes, the three drained God Crashers were filled to the brim once more.

Lin Huang returned to the open space and gazing at the remaining three challengers who had signed the agreement before he asked, “Who’s up for round two?”

Chapter 667: Buy Buy Buy! Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The three challengers from the Divine Alliance panicked.

After watching Lin Huang’s previous battle, they knew that they had no chance of winning. Not only would they be sent back to the first checkpoint, even the points that they got from the rest of the Divine Alliance members would also have to be surrendered to Lin Huang.

Because the battle was being streamed live, it would be embarrassing to admit defeat now. However, they would feel ashamed as well if they were killed and had to give their points to him. The three of them discussed secretly and soon, they made up their minds.

“Lin Xie, it’s our fault as we attempted to steal your points. We admit that we’re weak,” a skinny, young man said, “Since you’ve killed Zhou Huai and obtained more than four million points, please stop here. If you can act as if nothing has happened, we guarantee that we won’t trouble you any longer. We can still be friends when we meet in the future.”

“What do you mean?” Lin Huang frowned. “You’ve already signed the agreement, but now you’re telling me now to act as if nothing has happened. Are you trying to break the contract? Why didn’t you consider the consequences before robbing me? You can’t fight me now, so you say that you’re weak. If I’m the one who loses the fight, do I deserve to give you all the points? Do I deserve to get bullied just because I’m weaker than you guys?!”

What he said struck the trio dumb.

“You signed the agreement along with your fingerprints at your own will. Nobody forced you to do so. Everyone here and the people who are watching the live stream video witnessed this. Rules are rules. If you were to break the contract, I suppose that the audience won’t agree to it, let alone me. You only have two choices if you want to leave. The first choice is to admit defeat and give half of your points to me whereas the second choice is to let me send you back to the first checkpoint of the Stairway Tree!”

Apparently, Lin Huang was not going to accept the three of them merely admitting that they were weak.

“Lin Xie, don’t be so mean to us,” whined the skinny young man gloomily.

“Don’t lecture me.” Lin Huang knew that he sounded intimidating. “Also, if you were to get me into trouble in the future, just come to me. Even if you’re an immortal-level rank-9, I’ll still send you back to the first checkpoint of the Stairway Tree.”

The audience’s eyes flew open wide, and comments could be seen flooding the screen.

“I hope that the chief of the Heaven Alliance can keep me with him. I know how to do household chores.”

“When I was still a blue flame-level, I froze to death for many times on the second checkpoint of the Stairway Tree. Look at the blue flame-levels nowadays. Tsk, tsk, why’s there such a huge difference?”

“If I have more than ten God Crashers, I can also… Alright, I’ll stop bullshitting. I can’t even afford to use the God Crasher…”

…

“Fight or admit defeat? Make your choice.” Lin Huang did not give them a third choice.

Since it had already come so far, the three challengers knew that they had no way out.

As they thought of the live video that was capturing them and the fact that their boss would probably be watching them, the three of them had no choice but to fight.

They did not have any hope left in the next three battles.

Although the three of them also had dimensional relics, Lin Huang managed to capture their movements with his Territory skill. His God Crashers killed them after a few teleport attempts. None of them managed to survive his attacks for more than two seconds.

After killing Zhou Huai and the rest, Lin Huang’s points exceeded 24 million and were double that of Chan Dou’s, who was previously ranked first. He now topped the chart.

Many of them were eyeing his points. However, whoever watched the live video basically had no means of grabbing his points at all. Six God Crashers were no joke, and nobody knew how many he had in total.

After the four battles ended, it was about 6.40p.m. As the sky turned dark, he followed Wang Zhong and returned to the Heaven Alliance subdivision.

“Little brat, you make me feel relieved. Fortunately, you won the fight and didn’t embarrass the Heaven Alliance.” Wang Zhong was impressed.

“If we try to avoid them all the time, they’ll ask for more. What they say to me will get harsher every time we meet.” Lin Huang decided to fight them only after careful consideration. He did not act rashly. “Even if they’re here in the future, I guess they’ll be humble. As for the rest who saw the God Crashers, I guess they won’t want to fight me anymore.”

“Although the third generation God Crasher is powerful, the number of usages is restricted. It’s helpful in emergencies. Try not to use it so often in the future.” Wang Zhong could identify that it was a third generation God Crasher.

“I know. I wouldn’t have used the God Crasher if there weren’t so many points for me to grab. I have an additional 16 million now, which I can exchange for many amazing items.” Lin Huang grinned.

“One Stairway point equals to 1,000 Life Crystals. 24 million points equal to 24 billion Life Crystals. It’s enough to buy two demigod relics!” Wang Zhong exclaimed. “However, I’d suggest you not to buy the demigod relic. Try to buy whatever you can use now or in the near future. What you should do now is to enhance your ability as the God Crasher is just an external support.”

“Got it. Don’t worry.” Lin Huang already knew how he was going to use the points.

After saying goodbye to Wang Zhong, Lin Huang logged out of the Genius Union. At the hotel, he visited the Genius Union Stairway Mall in browsing mode.

The first item he checked out was the telekinetic throwing daggers.

Under normal circumstances, ancient relics could only be activated when Lin Huang achieved immortal-level. Nevertheless, he bought it now because he could use it when he used the Transformation Card. Moreover, he was now on blue flame-level. As soon as he found a suitable Life Fire monster, he could get on gold flame-level in two to three months, at the most. Perhaps it would take him about half a year to level up to immortal-level. Therefore, it was not too early to prepare.

Six types of telekinetic throwing daggers were found in the Stairway Mall. Lin Huang was interested in the strongest weapon at first glance. The name of the Life Power throwing dagger was the Ink Feather. A triple mutated Dark Angel had dropped the item. Despite the fact that the combat strength of the Dark Angels being on purple gold-rank, their abilities were comparable to a demigod’s. Killing those rare creatures was tough.

There were only three sets of Ink Feathers in the Stairway Mall. 3,600 dark jade-like throwing daggers formed each set and were being sold at a price of 1.8 million points, which could be converted to 1.8 billion Life Crystals.

“It’s expensive, but it’s worth it! It’s on par with a demigod relic, and it’s the best telekinetic weapon.” Lin Huang then ordered the daggers without hesitation.

Each set would cost him 1.8 million points, so three sets would cost 5.4 million points. The members of the Heaven Alliance enjoyed a discount of 30%. Therefore, the price ended up to be 3.78 million.

“The 30% discount is awesome! I can save more than 1.6 million points then.” He paid without hesitating and soon, he started looking for sword skills.

His Sword Dao was stuck at level-4 as he only had a few transcendent sword skills.

The transcendent sword skills ranked from Illumination, Oblivion, and Void Breaker. They were on level-3, level-4, and level-5 Sword Dao respectively.

According to Xiao Hei, the epic-level sword skills incorporated two levels, which were Illumination and Oblivion. The corresponding level of the legendary-level sword skills would be the Void Breaker.

When he was at the Martial Hunter College, he had learned almost all the sword skills below transcendent level in Divison 7. However, the transcendent sword skills were possessed by different organizations and were not publicly available.

He had learned less than ten types of epic-level sword skills, including the two skills he had picked up at the Martial Hunter College and a few that he had already learned on his own. As for the legendary-level sword skills, the only one he had discovered was the Star Dome.

In the Stairway Mall, there was a variety of Illumination skills; there was a total of 1,300 of them. The skills were relatively cheap as he could buy them at a price of just about 10 points. The most expensive skill cost about 80 points, and none of them cost more than 100 points.

Lin Huang then spent more than 40,000 points to download more than 1,300 types of Illumination sword skills.

He then started checking on the Oblivion and Void Breaker sword skills.

The Oblivion sword skill was rather expensive as it cost at least 300 points per skill. Some of them even required 5,000 to 6,000 points. There were 700 of them. Lin Huang spent 1.2 million points to buy all of them.

As for the Void Breaker sword skill, each of them was sold at a price of more than 10,000 points. Many of them cost about 100,000 points. Also, the price of seven of the sword skills cost more than a million. However, there were only about 80 types of Void Breaker sword skills.

All in all, Lin Huang had spent about 18 million points to buy seven of the most expensive sword skills and the remaining 78 sword skills.

After purchasing all the items, Lin Huang had almost used up all the 24 million points he initially had.

Chapter 668: Which Checkpoint of the Stairway Tree Were You At When You Were a Blue Flame-Level?

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Seeing his remaining 780,000 points, he forced a smile. “The points can be used up terribly easily.”

After buying all the stuff he wanted, it was about 8 p.m. He started checking the sword skills that he had just acquired.

The sword skills were encrypted and had been sent to him through his Emperor’s Heart Ring after payment had been made.

The Illumination sword skill was the first set projected. Lin Huang spent about 15 minutes watching its tutorial.

Since his Sword Dao was already on level-4, he basically managed to learn the level-3 sword skills after watching the practical part of the sword skill and its tutorial.

It was like a person who had mastered advanced mathematics and was looking back at the syllabus of high school mathematics. They would understand it after studying it once.

It took him another five to six minutes to watch the practicing of the sword skill thrice. However, he did not watch the detailed tutorial.

After about 20 minutes, he started practicing the sword skill in the hotel living room. He practiced thrice after a few minutes. Each time after finishing the practice of his sword skill, he obtained thousands of card pieces. After three rounds, the Skill Card of the first sword skill was formed.

Soon after, a Skill Card was formed in his body after every 20 minutes.

By midnight, Lin Huang had already learned 11 Illumination sword skills. He could sense that there was a slight improvement in his Sword Dao. Obviously, his way of practicing was correct.

The next day, Lin Huang got out of bed early in the morning and logged into the Genius Union world. He started climbing again.

After more than two hours, he finally managed to get through the 49th checkpoint. However, after more than two hours, Lin Huang was stuck on the 50th checkpoint.

He was completely wrapped in a sticky resin at the 50th checkpoint, and he could not get rid of it at all. Attacking was the only way to free himself. He had to slash it by force and make his way through the ditch.

However, the resin was immune to almost all types of energy including Life Power, elemental energy, telekinetic energy, and some of the unusual energies. Only physical attacks could destroy it. Moreover, the resin could move and recover on its own. If the attack were not launched fast enough, the damaged section would recover on its own swiftly.

Some of them teamed up and attempted to attack it. However, as long as there was more than one person who attacked the same part, the defense strength of the resin would be 10 to 100 times stronger.

Lin Huang was most fearful of checkpoints like this. Since he was just a blue flame-level, his physique was incomparable to an immortal-level’s.

As the resin was immune to his telekinetic power, the power of the telekinetic weapon would be suppressed when it reached a particular area. Its power would be even weaker than 1/10,000 of its standard power. In fact, it would not affect the resin at all.

After several attempts, not even a crack could be seen on the resin. He had tried many ways such as removing his telekinetic power as he approached the resin, relying on the throwing dagger to attack, and grouping the throwing daggers into a drill to bore a hole in it. He had even summoned the Mighty Ape.

Since there was an audience, Lin Huang did not summon Tyrant or attempt to attack with his sword skills. He then returned to the 46th checkpoint.

Just as he returned to the 46th checkpoint, somebody had started a new thread in the Genius Union forum. The post was about Lin Huang failing the 50th checkpoint.

The people started commenting rapidly, saying that Lin Xie could only rely on the God Crasher. Without the God Crasher, he was trash.

Once the people started criticizing him, many of them followed the trend and commented on him. They commented that it was useless to rely on external support. Only those who were weak would depend on external forces.

Only a few of them supported him as he had gained some new fans since the incident that happened yesterday.

What ended this commotion was Chan Dou’s comment.

“For those who say that Lin Xie is weak, I’d like to ask, which checkpoint of the Stairway Tree were you on when you were a blue flame-level?”

The comment struck everybody dumb.

Lin Xie was only on blue flame-level, yet he had already reached the 49th checkpoint. Nobody had ever achieved this in the past. He indeed had the God Crasher. However, could someone get into the 49th checkpoint solely by relying on the God Crashers? Even idiots would know that it was impossible. Aside from some of the checkpoints where the God Crasher would be useful to him when there were the monster attacks, the God Crasher could not assist him at all at the rest of the checkpoints.

By the time Lin Huang knew that people were commenting on him, the issue had already subsided. He did not care so much about it though. After returning to the Heaven Alliance subdivision, he logged out of the Genius Union.

Since he was stuck and could no longer continue climbing up the Stairway Tree, Lin Huang decided to focus on practicing his sword skills. He did not log into the Genius Union for ten consecutive days.

Under normal circumstances, Lin Huang could master one set of sword skills in about 20 minutes. However, sometimes when the swords skills were somewhat tricky, it would take him twice as long to master the skill. Over the past ten days, Lin Huang had learned about 450 Illumination sword skills, which was about a third of the Illumination sword skills that he had bought.

Lin Huang’s sword realm was improving rapidly in the past ten days. At first, he was initially at the beginning stage of Oblivion. He had now proceeded to the middle stage.

Lin Huang planned to practice for 20 consecutive days so that he could learn all the Illumination sword skills. However, he received a video call from Chan Dou early in the morning.

As soon as the video call was answered, Chan Dou asked with a smile, “You haven’t logged into the Genius Union for 13 days. What are you up to?”

“Recently, I’ve been busy practicing my sword skills. I didn’t know that it’s the end of the month already,” Lin Huang replied.

“I’m calling you because it’s near the end of the month. A few days later, the Stairway Tree will summarize the rewards to be given out in May. If you’re capable of breaking through the 50th checkpoint, try your best to do so. Rewards given to you after you reach the 50th checkpoint or higher are completely different from what you obtain from the 40th to the 49th checkpoint. However, if you can’t do so, just ignore what I’ve said since 90% of them who stay on the 46th checkpoint failed to reach the 50th checkpoint anyway. There aren’t any useful strategies for this checkpoint.”

“I’ll try again when I’m free.” Lin Huang nodded. He did not notice that it was now the end of May.

After hanging up, he took a look at the date. It was already May 29. There were two days left until the monthly rewards would be given to them on the first of June.

He hesitated for a moment and soon, he logged into the Genius Union again.

It was still early in the morning at about 7 a.m. Not many people were online.

He then rode on the Mighty Ape and directly climbed up to the 50th checkpoint.

After observing the surroundings and making sure that there was no one else around him, he then took out his ink-tainted battle sword. His sword realm had been fully activated. Even without the use of Life Power, he sliced his sword forward and cut through the resin.

Lin Huang did not expect that a big ditch would form as he attacked. He managed to cut through the resin without any obstacle.

“It’s my sword realm!”

Lin Huang could clearly sense that the change because of his sword realm. As his sword penetrated through the resin layer, he felt that it was as easy as cutting through tofu. The resin that was tainted by his sword realm resembled plastic that was being melted by a high temperature as it shriveled up on its own and shrank, creating a path. He knew that not all of the sword realms would work. The effect of his sword realm was apparent because it was incredibly strong.

Since there was a shortcut, Lin Huang did not bother staying there any longer. He thrust his sword forward and formed ditches, paving a route on the resin. In less than five minutes, he had broken through the 50th checkpoint that had been a barrier to more than 10,000 people.

As he reached the 51st checkpoint, he immediately put his battle sword away and summoned Tyrant to get through this checkpoint.

The difficulty level from the 50th checkpoint onwards was much higher. Lin Huang spent precisely five hours to complete the 51st checkpoint. He broke through the 52nd checkpoint just when the sky was turning dark.

Lin Huang spent exactly two days getting through four checkpoints, from the 51st checkpoint to the 54th checkpoint.

Nobody expected that he would reach the humans’ foothold on the 55th checkpoint. Even he himself did not expect that to happen.

At every checkpoint above the 50th checkpoint, each level was very challenging, and Lin Huang even felt like giving up. Fortunately, there were no people there, and he could perform his strongest sword realm, summoning Bai and the rest to help him out without any qualms. Even then, he only managed to reach the 55th checkpoint before the sky turned dark.

As he stepped into the 55th checkpoint, Lin Huang immediately looked for a crack on the bark and logged out of the virtual reality.

Chapter 669: The Bizarre Seed Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Since any expenditure on the Stairway Mall would not affect their ranking, Lin Xie’s name was still ranked first on the leaderboard. Many people paid close attention to the changes in Lin Huang’s achievement these few days.

In the beginning, everybody was shocked when Lin Huang managed to break through the 50th checkpoint as the majority of them were stuck at the 46th checkpoint, having failed to get to the 50th checkpoint.

Lin Huang then only managed to break through two checkpoints in a day. Everyone could feel that his climb was getting tougher.

At the 51st checkpoint, he did not complete the level even after several hours, so they expected him to stop there. However, after more than 5 hours, he finally managed to get through it.

The next few checkpoints were tough for him, and it took him a long time to pass through each checkpoint.

Still, Lin Huang managed to reach the 55th checkpoint.

The 55th checkpoint was the fourth gathering point of the humans at the Stairway Tree. Anyone who was capable of reaching this checkpoint was primarily on immortal-level rank-7.

Everybody in the Genius Union did not expect Lin Xie, who was only on blue flame-level, to reach this checkpoint. Even Lin Huang himself did not expect this achievement.

This had to be recorded in the history as a mind-blowing feat because nobody who was on holy fire-level could ever climb to the 55th checkpoint in the past. Lin Huang was the first and only one.

After Lin Huang had broken the record, the Emperor’s Heart even blasted an announcement to all the Genius Union’s current members.

“Congratulations to Lin Xie, who’s a blue flame-level! He has reached the 55th checkpoint! It’s the highest checkpoint that a holy fire-level can reach so far!”

The announcement from the Emperor’s Heart was pinned at the top of the Genius Union’s forum.

Many of them who had not paid attention to Lin Huang’s achievement were shocked when they received the announcement.

Some of them even started a topic under the pinned post in the forum.

When you were a blue flame-level, which checkpoint of the Stairway Tree were you on?

Soon, many people started commenting on this topic.

“The… The first checkpoint… (Covers face)”

“I’ve been frozen to death 11 times at the second checkpoint. I’ve no choice but to go back to the first checkpoint! (Nose picking)”

“I’ve been frozen to death 13 times…”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything though I’ve been frozen to death 28 times! (Shrugs)”

“When I was a blue flame-level, I think I was at the 29th checkpoint.” This was Chan Dou.

“Oh my god. A pro has appeared. Allow me, the noob, to leech on you.”

“I only saw a noob being sucked dry by a pro instead.”

…

After logging out, Lin Huang was immediately pinged by the Emperor’s Heart because he had broken a record.

Along with the announcement, a notice about a reward was sent to him as well.

“Due to your outstanding performance in the Genius Union, a bizarre seed is rewarded to you.”

Aside from the notice, there was also an attachment, which Lin Huang opened. He found a black seed.

Feeling curious, he immediately downloaded it. After a short while, the download was completed. The virtual black seed appeared in his hand unexpectedly.

“What’s happening?” Lin Huang was shocked. He knew that many of the items from the Genius Union could be brought to reality. However, that would only happen when the item was stored in the Emperor’s Heart Ring, and one would have to take it out from there. However, the black seed had become a tangible item and had appeared in his hand right after he downloaded it.

Staring at the seed with careful observation, he noticed that the black seed was only the size of his pinky finger. He could not figure out if there was anything special about it.

Lin Huang then wanted to store it in his Emperor’s Heart Ring, but he failed to do so. He had no other choice but to put it in his pocket.

Full of doubts, he opened the Heart Network to search for more information regarding the bizarre seed. However, he could find no information regarding it.

In the Genius Union, as he searched for the keywords “bizarre seed”, the result screen showed that he had no authority to access it.

Lin Huang was even more curious now, and he sent Chan Dou a message. “What is a bizarre seed?”

After sending the message for less than two seconds, he received a video call from Chan Dou.

Lin Huang answered the video call, feeling odd.

“Did you obtain the bizarre seed as a reward?” Chan Dou exclaimed in surprise.

“Hmmm… I’m just asking.” Lin Huang did not answer him directly.

“I see.” Chan Dou realized that he was being dramatic. After calming himself down, he replied, “The bizarre seed is an exclusive reward given by the Genius Union to those with outstanding performance. It’s the best reward in the Genius Union. Its level even surpasses a demigod relic.

“Although I’ve never seen it before, I’ve heard from the seniors that the bizarre seed is actually a God’s item. Its value may possibly be higher than a God’s relic. When the seed is inserted into your body, each bizarre seed will grow into different fruits. Some of the fruits will allow you to have supernatural powers whereas some of them will turn into a God’s item or a God’s relic. What it’ll grow into varies in different bodies. It’s said that its breeding time varies according to different bodies as well. Some of them take only a day to grow into fruits whereas some of them can’t germinate into fruits even after a hundred years.

“The seed can be activated easily. As long as you insert your Life Power into it continuously until it has been completely filled, it’ll be automatically activated. The activated seed will enter the body of the person who inserted Life Power into it. You don’t need to bother it after that.” Chan Dou shared the method of activation with him. Obviously, he guessed that Lin Huang had obtained the bizarre seed as a reward.

“Thank you.” Lin Huang did not bother denying that he had received the bizarre seed.

Chan Dou looked at him enviously and did not say anything else. He then hung up.

After the conversation with Chan Dou ended, Lin Huang took out the black seed from his pocket. Without a moment of hesitation, he started inserting Life Power as Chan Dou had taught him.

He was practicing his Army Attack Tactics while inserting his Life Power into the seed.

Soon, the first Life Wheel had been drained, followed by the second, the third, and the fourth… Eventually, ten of his Life Wheels had been depleted, but nothing happened to the seed. The seed resembled an abyss as it engulfed all the Life Power in ten of his Life Wheels without being activated.

Lin Huang immediately used a Life Power Refill Card since his Life Power had been drained. After restoring the Life Power in ten of his Life Wheels, he began inserting Life Power into the black seed for the second time.

After half an hour, the Life Power in ten of his Life Wheels had been used up again. Still, there was no response from the seed.

Lin Huang then took out the second and the third Life Power Refill Cards and inserted Life Power into the seed yet again.

An hour had passed, and the amount of Life Power from 40 Life Wheels had been inserted. The little pinky-sized black seed showed no response though.

“It seems like it’s hard to activate it in a short period of time.”

Lin Huang forced a smile. He was exhausted, so he kept the seed in his pocket. He then started practicing his Army Attack Tactics to restore the Life Power in his body.

Chapter 670: The Fourth Life Fire Monster Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang did not sleep at night as he spent the whole night training his Army Attack Tactics. By about noon, it had taken him about 15 hours to fill up the Life Power in ten of his Life Wheels. At the same time, he had restored the Life Power in three of the Life Power Refill Cards.

After lunch, Lin Huang did not log into the Genius Union. It was meaningless if he were to log into the virtual reality as there were quite a number of them at the 55th checkpoint. If he continued climbing, he would catch the people’s attention again. He did not want to reveal that he had mastered Sword Dao and owned a monster troop. Even if he were to use his trump card, the possibility of breaking through level 55 was low. Therefore, he did not want to waste his time and effort on such an attempt.

In the afternoon, Lin Huang started practicing his sword skills.

At about 11 p.m., he had learned 31 of the Illumination sword skills.

Before he slept, he took out the black seed again. He inserted the Life Power from nine out of ten of his Life Wheels. He then put his bizarre seed away.

Knowing that the seed could not be activated in a short period of time, he did not intend to spend much time on it. Even if it was activated, he was unsure of how long it would need to grow.

After retaining the Life Power in one of his Life Wheels in case he would need to use it, Lin Huang took a shower and slept.

Just after 6 a.m., upon waking up, ten of the Life Wheels in his body had been recharged. Of course, it would be slower for the Army Attack Tactics skill to rotate itself compared to when it was activated. Nevertheless, it would not be a problem for it to fill up ten Life Wheels overnight.

After breakfast, he started training his sword skills again.

At about 8 a.m., he received the monthly rewards for the month of May from the Genius Union.

From the first to the 10th checkpoint of the Stairway Tree, he obtained one point for every checkpoint he broke through. From the 11th to the 20th checkpoint, 10 points would be awarded to him for each checkpoint. From the 21st to the 30th checkpoint, 100 points would be given and so on… From the 51st to the 60th checkpoint, he would obtain 100,000 points for each checkpoint.

Lin Huang had got to the 54th checkpoint. Therefore, he would obtain 400,000 points each year. These points would be distributed ten times from January to October, and each time, only 40,000 points would be awarded. As for November and December, there would be no rewards. However, within these two months, the points would be recalculated. For those who had new achievements, the points could be redeemed retroactively.

For example, if somebody managed to reach the 50th checkpoint the previous month, their points would total up to 100,000. However, if they could break through the 60th checkpoint this month, their points would rise to one million. They would then be rewarded 100,000 points each month. Therefore, in November and December, after the points had been recalculated, the remaining points for the past few months would be given to them.

After December, the Emperor’s Heart would file an annual settlement. According to the personal points accumulated on an annual basis and the annual ranking of the organizations, the rewards would be assigned. This was the reason why many geniuses joined the Genius Union.

Monthly rewards meant nothing to them as only points or relics would be rewarded.

For those who managed to get to checkpoints above the 50th checkpoint, some of the rewards could be Void Breaker skills whereas some of them were the ancient relics. They were much more valuable than the items rewarded below the 50th checkpoint.

However, the monthly rewards seemed unappealing to Lin Huang because for checkpoints below the 60th checkpoint, the rewards from the Emperor’s Heart could only be Void Breaker skills or low-grade ancient relics. They only cost tens of millions of Life Crystals.

He had ensured that the transaction for the 40,000 points had been done. Lin Huang then took a look at the item he received. It was an ancient sword relic.

Similar to the three sets of Ink Feathers that Lin Huang had just bought a few days ago, the combat sword was directly stored in his storage space.

He took it out and studied it. Its quality was apparently incomparable to the Air Slicer. He supposed that the sword was obtained from a black gold-level monster. He wanted to sell it at the auction when he was free. Since ancient relics were rare, the sword could possibly be sold at a price of more than 10 million Life Crystals at the auction.

After storing his combat sword, Lin Huang did not pay close attention to the monthly reward. Again, he switched his focus back to his Sword Dao training.

When it was slightly after 11 at night, he inserted his Life Power into the black seed again. He then took a shower and went to bed.

Lin Huang repeated this process for the next 21 days.

Every morning, he started training his sword skills at about 7 a.m. At about 11 p.m., he spent about half an hour inserting his Life Power into the black seed and went to bed at around midnight.

Still, the black seed was not activated.

However, Lin Huang finally completed the training of 1,368 Illumination Sword Skills. His level-4 Sword Dao had improved from the beginning stage to the peak of Oblivion.

He knew that with his sword realm, he was about to achieve level-5 Sword Dao.

However, he did not force himself to train his Oblivion sword skills in order to make a breakthrough. Instead, he chose to settle down, waiting for the chance to come.

When Liu Ming was an immortal-level rank-9, he was stuck at this checkpoint for tens of years because he was too eager to achieve it, but things turned out differently for him.

Liu Ming had explicitly emphasized this when they talked about Sword Dao. Each level of Sword Dao could not be achieved by force. He had to let nature take its course. Otherwise, he might get on the wrong path.

Since there was a substantial improvement in his Sword Dao in addition to his blue flame-level Life Power becoming stable after more than a month, Lin Huang was finally leaving Sweep City.

He had gotten an update from the black market a week ago regarding the triple mutated monster.

One of them was a triple mutated humanoid monster which possessed a sword heart in its body. The monster’s tinder would definitely inherit its sword heart.

Lin Huang was eager to obtain the ability of a sword heart a long time ago. However, he could not find a suitable Life Fire monster all the while. He now finally had the chance to hunt this monster.

If the practice of his Sword Dao could not be completed in the nick of time, Lin Huang would have left to hunt down the monster a week ago.

According to the information he got from the black market, it was a Whitesword Supreme with an immortal-level rank-6 combat strength.

The Whitesword Supreme was not a new monster to Lin Huang as he had seen it before in the monster guide. However, he had never had a chance of encountering such a monster.

The triple mutated monster was relatively strong as it could fight an immortal-level rank-8.

If he were to kill it on its own, Lin Huang was not confident of defeating it. Fortunately, he was not alone as he had his monster troop.

The place where the Whitesword Supreme had appeared was not easy to access. It had been discovered on an island in the Peaceful Ocean.

“It seems like I’ve to go to the Peaceful Ocean…” Lin Huang fixed his gaze on the map provided by the black market.

Chapter 671: F*ck, I Forgot to Save My Draft!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The Peaceful Ocean was the third most dangerous forbidden land in the entire world. It ranked just right behind the virtual zone and the Abyss Brink. It was the largest ocean in the world, connecting 8 of the 12 safe zones. Before leaving Division 7, the ocean that Mr. Fu had brought him to train at was a small portion of the Peaceful Ocean in Division 7. Division 3 was connected to the east coast of the Peaceful Ocean.

The Peaceful Ocean was much more perilous than the second layer of the Abyss Brink. Besides king sea monsters that were even more humongous than giants, there were many imperial and even demigod-level monsters around. There were four harbors that one could enter the Peaceful Ocean through. The Victoria Harbor was the nearest island to the harbor where the Whitesword Supreme was. It was 16,000 nautical miles (almost 30,000 kilometers) away.

From the south point that Lin Huang trained at, he would have to get to Victoria Harbor and take the Demonic Crystal Spaceship to the Far East Island. The Far East Island was the closest island that the Demonic Crystal Spaceship could reach and was the nearest to the Supreme Whitesword. Even so, it was more than 8,000 nautical miles away from the unknown island where the Supreme Whitesword was, so Lin Huang would still have to fly there on his own.

After plotting the route in the middle of the night, Lin Huang bought the tickets to Victoria City and the Far East Island when it was past 1 a.m. In the morning, Lin Huang packed his bag and checked out of the room after his breakfast downstairs. He had stayed more than a month in Sweep City, and he hardly got out of his hotel room because he was training. Now that it was the end of June, most sections of Division 3 were experiencing summer, and everyone in Sweep City was wearing short-sleeved clothing.

Lin Huang dressed casually in a white t-shirt with a blue Furry Beast printed on it and a pair of jeans. In such a handsome disguise, the two ladies at the reception ogled him as they were assisting him to check out of his room. After he left, the two ladies excitedly discussed between themselves about whether he was the most handsome guest that they ever had this year.

After leaving the hotel, Lin Huang summoned Thunder and headed to the dimensional portal of the Peaceful Ocean. The portal to Victoria City would open only once a day at 9 a.m. daily. There were only six people including Lin Huang when he arrived at the dimensional portal. Since Victoria City was a large harbor, many tourists were visiting the beach during the summer. There were very few people at the dimensional portal as it was the end of June and the summer holidays had yet to start.

When it was 9 a.m. sharp, the dimensional portal opened. Lin Huang scanned his ticket together with the other five, then stepped into the portal. Soon, they stepped out of the portal and arrived at Victoria City. It was a sunny, cloudless day. Lin Huang then took out his dimensional portal to pin the coordinates. After confirming the location of Victoria Harbor on the Emperor’s Heart Ring’s map, he summoned Thunder again and headed there.

Twenty minutes later, Thunder brought Lin Huang to the Victoria Harbor. There was only one ship that headed to the Far East Island from that harbor once a week and coincidentally, it was that very day. The ship would depart at 11 a.m., which was the reason why Lin Huang went there early in the morning. If he had not made it to the ship today, he would have to wait for another week.

He had bought the ticket in the middle of the night and found it expensive at 3,000 Life Crystals per ticket, which was the price of a grade-2 or grade-3 relic. It only covered a standard cabin with two people to a room. A private cabin would cost 20,000 Life Crystals per ticket, which was the price of a grade-5 relic. Besides being a private room for one, it came with an en-suite bathroom with a bathtub. Although Lin Huang had the money, the tickets for the private cabin were sold out. Of course, there was the economy cabin that was cheaper than the standard cabin at only 500 Life Crystals per ticket. There would be eight people in a room without a bathroom. Even so, the tickets were sold out since the beginning.

As soon as he arrived at the harbor, Lin Huang soon saw the gigantic Demonic Crystal Spaceship floating in mid-air. It was even bigger than any of the ships that Lin Huang had ever seen. It was almost like a battleship. He knew that such a ship was called the Emperor’s Ship and it was a supreme relic that was made of the bones of an imperial-level king sea monster. Although it was only a supreme relic, its defense was much more powerful than most of the ancient relic armors. Besides that, there were God Crashers and other weapons on the ship that could be used to chase away sea monsters.

The ship was like a demigod relic. If it were to be sold at auctions, it would be more expensive than a demigod relic. After Lin Huang was done admiring the ship, he searched for a place to wait for the ship to depart. He looked far away to see tourists wandering around the stores in the harbor. Although it was not the summer holidays yet, there were already many tourists.

The Far East Island was the most eastern island that the Division 3 Demonic Crystal Spaceship could get to. The island itself was beautiful, and you could catch the earliest sunset in Division 3 there, hence the flocking tourists. Lin Huang observed around and soon noticed an al fresco cafe. However, it was almost entirely occupied with only one vacant seat under an umbrella.

There was a man with a messy mustache sitting across the vacant seat. He wore sunglasses, a white t-shirt, a pair of sky blue beach shorts, and flip-flops. He was tapping on a virtual keyboard on his Emperor’s Heart Ring.

“Uncle, is there anyone sitting here?” Lin Huang asked.

The man in the sunglasses peered at him over the Emperor’s Heart Ring projection and said in all seriousness, “You should call me ‘brother’ at your age. If you’re below 16, it’s okay for you to call me ‘uncle’, but it’s obvious that you’re over 20 and I’m only 31. I think you shouldn’t call me that.”

“Oh… Alright then. Brother, is anyone sitting here?” Lin Huang corrected himself.

“No, please sit.” The man turned back to the projection in front of him.

Lin Huang ordered a cup of coffee while waiting for the ship to depart patiently. The man across him occasionally frowned, scratching his head and sometimes biting his nails. He seemed to be in a dilemma as he typed slowly on his virtual keyboard. Although Lin Huang was curious about what the man was doing, recalling the conversation they had earlier, he gave up asking to save himself any possible embarrassment.

When it was 10.30 a.m., the checking of the tickets started. Seeing that many people had stood up to queue, Lin Huang ordered himself another cup of coffee. The man sitting across him did not look like he was standing up either as he continued typing on the virtual keyboard slowly. Ten minutes later, Lin Huang stood up after noticing that there were not many people left in the queue.

Just when he was leaving, he decided to remind the man because he noticed that the man did not seem to be leaving.

“Brother, the ship is leaving. Don’t you want to make a move?”

“The ship is leaving!” The man switched off the projection frantically and let out a groan out of nowhere as he shot up to his feet with his bag.

“F*ck, I forgot to save my draft!”

Lin Huang ignored the man and boarded the ship.

Chapter 672: Lin Huang’s Roommate

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After boarding the ship, Lin Huang soon found his assigned cabin that was printed on his ticket, Room 308. There was nobody in the room. The speed of the Emperor’s Ship was not considered fast whereby its normal flying speed was only 2,000 kilometers per hour. The distance between the Victoria Harbor to the Far East Island was 15,000 kilometers with two stops in between. It would take almost eight hours to get there. If Lin Huang were to summon Thunder at full speed, he would take half the time the ship needed.

However, many people did not choose to ride on their flying mounts as it was safer on the Emperor’s Ship as long as they did not encounter any demigod-level monsters. Even if they encountered imperial-level monsters, the tens of God Crashers would destroy the monsters. They were hardly any demigod-level monsters 10,000 nautical miles along the east coast. It would be unfortunate if they did encounter one.

Lin Huang looked out of the window as he sat on his bed. Many people were admiring the blue and calm Peaceful Ocean on the deck. It did not look like an ocean, but more like a massive lake. However, Lin Huang, who had stayed more than a month on the Peaceful Ocean, knew that everything was not as tranquil as it seemed.

“308… 308…” While Lin Huang was spacing out as he looked out of the window, he heard someone mumbling at the door. He turned around and looked expectantly at the door as he heard his room number. A man in beach shorts stood at the door and glanced at the room number before walking in.

“It’s you!” The man saw Lin Huang as soon as he entered. Lin Huang did not expect the weird man in sunglasses whom he met at the cafe to be his roommate.

The man took off his sunglasses and walked to Lin Huang.

“I know that you meant me well when you urged me to get on the ship earlier. I’d like to thank you for that, but you made me forget to save my draft! My four hours of work was washed down the drain. Do you know the pain of losing four hours of work as a lousy writer who managed to squeeze out 2,000 words?”

“Erm…” Lin Huang looked awkward as he genuinely could not understand the pain. However, seeing that the man was so mad that he was going to cry, he decided to apologize.

“I’m sorry, it’s my fault.”

Since Lin Huang apologized, the man was slightly placated. He then put his sunglasses on again.

“Forget about it. Just be careful the next time and not be so hurried for a small matter like that. A man should be calm.”

“Who was the one who forgot to save his own draft? It’s you who isn’t calm…” Lin Huang thought to himself.

“Brother, are you an author?” Lin Huang could not help but ask as he watched the man typing on his virtual keyboard again. He was not really that interested in his occupation, but since they would be in the same room for eight hours, it would be boring not to speak to each other. He was shy to practice his sword skills when there was a stranger in the room anyway.

“Just a small one. I’m just trying to make a living.” The man smiled.

“Are you looking for inspiration on the Far East Island?” Lin Huang asked again.

“Yeah, I’ve been stuck recently probably due to staying home for too long, so I guess it’s good to get some fresh air. It’s summer now, so it’s the perfect time to spend some time on an island.” The man was much friendlier when he talked about his job.

“What kind of book do you write, brother?”

“I’ve been writing a story about this world recently. The main character is an Imperial Censor with many triple mutated summoning monsters…”

Lin Huang’s interest was sparked when he heard that the man was writing a story about an Imperial Censor, so he asked further, “What’s the name of the book? I shall read it whenever I have the time.”

“It’s called ‘Monster Paradise’. My pen name is Nuclear Warhead. You can look for my book or pen name on the Heart Network, and you’ll find me. Oh yeah, please support the original only, alright?” The man recommended his own book when he realized he had a potential reader in the room.

“Sure, I’ll take a look when I’ve got the time, and I’ll definitely support the original.”

“My name is Zhu Jiu, but you can call me Bro Jiu. What do I call you, little brother?” The man asked.

“My name’s Lin Xie.” Lin Huang smiled.

“What a coincidence! The main character of my book is also Lin.” Zhu Jiu laughed when he heard Lin Huang’s name.

“I’ll definitely read your book when I’m done with my stuff.” Lin Huang thought that the coincidence was interesting.

“Bro Lin, didn’t you bring your girlfriend to the Far East Island with you?” Zhu Jiu asked.

“I’m still single.” Lin Huang let out an awkward laugh. “Didn’t you bring your wife, Bro Jiu?”

“I’m already so old. No woman wants me anymore,” Zhu Jiu sighed.

“Since you’re still young, you should really appreciate the people around you. Don’t be like me. I can’t return to the people that got away. You’re young. Go after whoever you like. Don’t be shy. Let go of your ego, or you’ll regret letting some people go for the rest of your life…”

Lin Huang became silent when he heard the advice. He had been in a relationship before when he was on Earth. In fact, he had more than one relationship. There was once when he almost tied the knot with the love of his life, but the girl could not take the fact that he was always out with his clients and away from home for work. They had broken up in the end.

He still remembered the first movie he had ever watched with her. It was ‘Big Hero 6’ and it was his first time holding the girl’s hand. He remembered which bench there sat on by the lake on their second date as well as the noodle store that they went to for lunch. He recalled his first time kissing the girl while peeping at the side of her startled face carefully.

“I’d like to kiss you…”

“Kiss me then,” the girl had replied with a smile.

He remembered the girl leaving the next day, and he had taken a plane to the city the girl was in before calling her at the airport so that they could meet. He had cried at the airport when the girl rejected him. He did not even leave the airport that day as he had immediately bought a plane ticket to go back to where he was…

“The past is in the past. Appreciate what we have now.” Lin Huang shook his head and snapped out of his thoughts.

A lady’s voice was then heard.

“The ship is departing soon. Passengers who are on the deck, please get back to your rooms as soon as possible…”

Chapter 673: Thunder’s Upgrade Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The Emperor’s Ship departed when it was 11 a.m.. Many people returned to the deck to enjoy the view. Lin Huang was reading the news as he was bored. His roommate Zhu Jiu proceeded to work on his book as he typed slowly on his virtual keyboard with an upset expression. The buffet lunch announcement was heard when it was 11:30 a.m..

“Bro Jiu, let’s eat.” Lin Huang stood up and said to Zhu Jiu.

“You go, I’m not eating.” Zhu Jiu frowned as he was deep in his thought without even looking up.

“How about I bring you food, what would you like eat?”

“That’s great, bring barbecue if there’s any. If they don’t have that, just bring me whatever that you think is good.” Zhu Jiu looked at Lin Huang and said.

“Sure!”

The restaurant on the first floor was crowded, there was no vacant seats at all. More than half of the 3,000 passengers on the spaceship were in the restaurant. Since there were too many people, Lin Huang ordered two sets of barbecued meat and returned to his room. After lunch, Lin Huang proceeded to read news, scrolling on social media sites while Zhu Jiu proceeded to write while looking constipated.

An intense shake came from the spaceship when it was past 2 p.m.. Lin Huang looked out in doubt, there were a bunch of bird monsters outside of the spaceship’s defence layer.

“What happened?” Zhu Jiu could not write anymore as the room was shaking like there was an earthquake.

“Nothing, we’ve been attacked by birds.” Lin Huang was calm.

An announcement came was then heard.

“Dear passengers, please do not be afraid. We’ve encountered birds so there’ll be a slight turbulence. Our staff is working on it.”

Soon, there were purple lightnings flashed outside of the spaceship’s defence layer. All of the bird monsters were burnt into ashes. The crises was solved easily.

“Oh wow this Emperor’s Ship is really something!” Lin Huang exclaimed as he watched by the window. There were tens of thousands of birds earlier. Although they were only immortal-level rank-1 to rank-3, if Lin Huang was not in the Emperor’s Ship, he would have a tough time killing all of the monsters.

The spaceship went through a peaceful hour since the attack and there was another intense turbulence when it was 3:30 p.m.. The entire spaceship felt heavier at an instant, many people at the deck screamed out of dear. Lin Huang looked out of the window in shock and saw a gigantic tentacle wrapping around the spaceship, the defence layer of the spaceship was now slightly distorted. That was the reason why the people on the deck were screaming as the defence looked like it was going to break anytime soon.

“Sea king?” Lin Huang observed the tentacle curiously. They were flying 12,000 meters above the sky, the monster must be massive to be able to reach that high. Lin Huang had seen a sea king monster before when he was in Division7. However, it was only thousands of meters long, which was only slightly bigger than a giant of the same combat level. Mr. Fu told him that the sea king monster that they encountered was just a baby, Lin Huang did not believe him that time. He believed what Mr. Fu said now that he was looking at the tentacle. He could not imagine how massive the monster was since its tentacle was already tens of thousands of meters long.

“Dear passengers, we’ve been attacked by an imperial-level sea king monster. For safety purpose, please return to your rooms and stay away from the deck…”

“We’ve been attacked by sea king monster?” Zhu Jiu looked out of the window immediately. He started recording with his Emperor’s Heart Ring when he saw the gigantic tentacle. He was oddly excited.

“I didn’t expect to see such amazing thing. I must write this down so that I have material for my book…”

“Being attacked by a sea king monster is a … good thing?” Lin Huang could not understand Zhu Jiu’s mindset but he was unwilling to encounter such massive monster during his trip. The advantage of a sea king monster was that they were born massive and full of strength. Their body was of high defence, they would be invincible if they had Enhanced Regeneration. It was the kind of monster that Lin Huang did not want to encounter during this trip. Fortunately he was on the Emperor’s Ship and did not have to fight the monster himself.

It was obvious that it was not the first time for the staff on the spaceship to encounter this as they did not panic at all. They reacted within seconds when they were attacked. A few God Crasher on top of the spaceship locked onto the tentacle and fired at the tentacle as a few white flashes were shot. The tentacle did not break from the attack but a burnt patch appeared on it. The monster released the defence layer accidentally from the pain and the spaceship took the advantage as it flew higher immediately. The spaceship had reached new high that the tentacle could reach and proceeded with its journey as usual.

Lin Huang was relieved that the crisis was over.

“Too bad we didn’t get to see how the monster looks like.” Zhu Jiu was disappointed.

There were too many sea king monsters in the Peaceful Ocean that did not make it into the monster encyclopedia so Lin Huang could not tell which monster was that. Since the incident, the journey was a smooth sailing besides encountering another bunch of bird monsters before arriving at the Fareast Island past 7 p.m..

The sky was completely dark when the spaceship landed at the Fareast Island. After bidding farewell with Zhu Jiu, Lin Huang headed to the hotel that he booked earlier. The Peaceful Ocean was dangerous enough during the day so Lin Huang did not want to risk his life by proceeding with his journey at night. He wanted to take a good rest at the hotel before heading to the unknown island where the Whitesword Supreme was.

The Fareast Island was not big where it was less than 30 square kilometers. It used to be an deserted island until someone found a mineral mountain on the island 100 years ago. The Union Government then bought the mineral mountain and got people to mine it later on. After the job was done 10 years later, many of the workers lived on the island and became the first generation on the island.

Since the island was developed, there were more than 300 population on the island. Including the outsiders who were running their businesses, there were almost 500 people on the island. The hotel that Lin Huang was staying located near the harbor was run by a local aunty, it had good mouth-of-word. As it was not peak season yet, the rooms were not fully booked. He got himself a sea view room with a big balcony that was facing the Peaceful Ocean. After checking into the room, he was satisfied after looking around.

Lin Huang then summoned Kylie when he returned to the living room.

“I need to use your mini world.”

Kylie opened the door to her mini world without saying a word while Lin Huang walked into it. He then summoned Thunder as soon as he entered.

“Buddy, it’s about time for you to level-up.”

Thunder nodded immediately as it was excited to be triple mutated. After redeeming three Advanced Cards from his 30 card rewards, Lin Huang held the three cards in his hand.

“Xiao Hei, use the Advanced Cards on Thunder.”

As soon as the three Advanced Cards in his hard disappeared, a white glow shot from the sky and covered Thunder entirely…

Chapter 674: All Human Should Die! Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Thunder completed its transformation overnight. The three Advanced Cards did not merely make it a triple mutated monster; they even activated the double bloodline of the Thunder Lord and the Storm Phoenix. The Thunder Lord was a powerful monster with an ancient bloodline. It looked like a falcon surrounded by purple lightning. With an extremely powerful physique, it was great at close-ranged combat. As a leading ferocious beast in the ancient times, it was as powerful as a real phoenix.

Meanwhile, the Storm Phoenix stemmed from a divisions of the phoenix blood monsters. It had wind attributes that enabled it to glide through the air. Thunder’s appearance experienced a significant change after its third mutation. It now had charcoal grey feathers with golden patterns woven among them, and its eyes were dark blue. It was much more muscular and taller than before, which made it look elegant without compromising its masculinity.

Lin Huang’s eyes lit up when he saw Thunder that was reborn in Kylie’s mini world the next morning.

“How are you feeling, Thunder?”

“I feel amazing! Like I have boundless energy in me.” Thunder sounded like a titillating, mature man as it flapped its wings in excitement. Light purple lightning bolts appeared as it beat them.

“That’s great. Follow me.” Lin Huang then patted its wings and recalled it back to its card form.

He then recalled Kylie after exiting her mini world. Lin Huang checked out of the hotel and summoned Thunder again when he was at the Far East Island beach. He rode on Thunder’s back after showing it their destination on the projected map. As Thunder flapped its wings, purple lightning bolts crackled around it. However, the lightning did not harm Lin Huang at all. On the contrary, it was like a defensive layer that protected him.

Thunder then turned into a charcoal grey lightning bolt and flew far away. It accelerated along the way from four thousand kilometers per hour in the beginning to five, then six. It peaked when it reached seven thousand kilometers per hour, which brought back the thrill that Lin Huang had not felt for a long time. To prevent unforeseen accidents, he got it to fly at six thousand kilometers instead. At that speed, it took them only two and a half hours to get to the unknown island that was fifteen thousand kilometers away.

Thunder was like a thunderbolt that traveled faster than the speed of light as it shot fifteen thousand meters above the Peaceful Ocean. Since the ship that Lin Huang was traveling in had been attacked at twelve thousand meters above the water surface, he thought it was still dangerous to fly at that height. Therefore, he got Thunder to fly three thousand meters higher. An hour had passed, and the journey was a smooth-sailing one. They encountered birds twice in between, but Thunder managed to get rid of them just by flying past them. The birds chased after them in the beginning but gave up eventually as Thunder was flying too fast.

Soon, two hours had passed, and they would be arriving on the unknown island in less than half an hour. Lin Huang was relieved that they were lucky enough not to have encountered any sea kings. As long as they arrived safely and killed the Supreme Whitesword, they would not have to cross the Peaceful Ocean anymore as they could use the dimensional portal instead.

Not long after Lin Huang was counting his lucky stars, he saw a massive flock of birds fleeing for their lives ahead. It was a group of Giant Teratorns. Each and every one of them was flailing their wings hopelessly. Lin Huang looked closer and noticed that each of them was above immortal-level rank-6. What would giant birds with a wingspan of hundreds of meters be running from?

Just when Lin Huang was pondering to himself, he finally saw a couple of gigantic tentacles grabbing the Giant Teratorns from behind. Each time the tentacles waved, they would get up to tens of Giant Teratorns, and sent them hurtling into the jaws of a gigantic monster that looked like an island on the surface of the ocean.

Lin Huang finally saw how the monster looked like. It had a human face without hair on its head. Its body below the head was covered in a thick layer of fat. It looked like an extremely obese human, whose wrinkly skin looked like a dead body that had been soaking in water for an extended period of time. However, it did not have limbs. The gross layer of fat covered everything all the way to its abdomen, and it no longer had a human’s body from below. Instead, it possessed twelve octopus-like red tentacles.

“Up, Thunder!”

Lin Huang instructed Thunder to pull up as soon as he noticed the monster. Thunder saw the sea king as well. Under normal circumstances, when encountering such a monster, it would definitely turn and flee in the first place since trespassing its territory would count as an offense. However, since Lin Huang had ordered it to do so, it could only obey. It then flew up from fifteen thousand meters to sixteen and then seventeen… Soon, it was flying more than twenty thousand meters above the ocean, exceeding the height that the tentacles could reach.

As Lin Huang observed the monster below, he was high-strung. He recognized that it was the monster that had attacked the ship yesterday. There was a scorch mark from the God Crasher on one of its tentacles. Even without the burn mark, it was not difficult to tell that it was the same monster like the one from yesterday. It was impossible for two imperial-level sea kings to coexist within a distance smaller than tens of thousands of kilometers. Most of such monsters were parthenogenetic and lived solo, whereby they would fight each other to the death if they ever encountered each other. Such aggression was because they had a big appetite, so food was scarce even for them, let alone with another appearance of the same monster within their territory.

The monster soon noticed Thunder. Lin Huang, who was riding on it, sensed that the monster was checking him out.

“Leave as fast as you can,” Lin Huang urged Thunder as he sensed that something was wrong.

Suddenly, the monster’s features crumpled into a ferocious expression, and it then floated into the sky. It gave up hunting the Giant Teratorns as its twelve tentacles begun zooming towards Thunder.

“All humans should die!

Chapter 675: I’ll Definitely Kill You Next Time

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“All human should die!”

The monster released a loud, brain-piercing ultrasonic cry which made Lin Huang dizzy. Thunder was affected as well as it fell downward. The monster took the advantage as it attempted to catch Thunder and Lin Huang with its tentacle.

“Thunder!” Thunder snapped back to its senses when Lin Huang shouted its name. It then flapped its wings to fly but it was too late. A tentacle had caught its tail.

Lin Huang took out six God Crashers without thinking twice. Controlling two God Crashers with his telekinesis, he shot at the tentacles tentacle. The God Crashers that he had were the most powerful third-generation ones. However, the attacks did not manage to pierce through the tentacle that was less than 10 meters away. There were two bleeding wounds that went meters deep.

The monster was so powerful that Lin Huang became concerned. If the God Crashers could do nothing to it, the monster would almost be like a demigod. Fortunately, the God Crasher did something as the monster released them from its tentacle as it cringed from pain, and seemed like it was being electrocuted. When this happened, the monster wore an even more ferocious look and let out another ultrasonic song.

“Human, you must die!”

“Thunder, close off your ears!” Lin Huang said to Thunder.

“I can attack two to three more times at most, and we’ll have to leave by then!”

The God Crasher needed time to recharge. Since Lin Huang had used two God Crashers, he was only left with four of them. He had figured that using one was not going to be enough so he used two at once. Now, he only had two or three more openings to take a shot at the monster.

Thunder knew that Lin Huang and it would become monster chow if they did not make their escape this time around. It flapped its wing rapidly and accelerated to a speed of 7,000 kilometers an hour as purple bolts of lightning surrounded its body. Then, it shot up high like a bolt of lightning as it flew away from the tentacles. The monster was enraged that it was attacked and missed its opportunity to capture them. In its final salvo, it shot its 11 tentacles in every direction in an attempt to grab Thunder.

Meanwhile, Thunder was flying up high as its dual wind and thunder attributes allowed it to fly so fast that nothing could touch it. To top it all off, it could also control the airflow to adjust its flight with ease. Since it had already shut off its ears, it was unaffected by the monster’s ultrasonic cry any longer, allowing it to fly freely. The tentacles that were coming to them were brushed off by the air controlled by Thunder.

There were several times when Lin Huang was about to use the God Crashers to fire at the approaching tentacles but Thunder managed to avoid them by changing the arc of its flight.

There was even once where a tentacle almost caught hold of Thunder’s wings as it was only less than three meters away. Thunder’s performance impressed Lin Huang because it was using flying techniques that were rather advanced. He had to admit that Thunder’s talent in flying was better than most since they would not be able to learn these techniques within a short period of time. However, Thunder seemed to naturally be endowed with them.

Fighting the monster, Lin Huang felt the seconds turn to hours. Although Thunder managed to avoid the monster, it was still within reach of the monster’s tentacles. The monster became smarter after several failed attempts. It blocked Thunder’s way with a couple of tentacles. Thunder attempted to break through them but it failed. When Lin Huang finally noticed, the monster was already restricting the airspace available to Thunder little by little.

“This is not going to work any longer. It’s shrinking our airspace, the small it gets, the higher chance we’d get attacked.” Lin Huang said to Thunder.

“We can’t go back anymore. Pick a direction, and dash toward it.”

Thunder nodded and dashed in one direction. The moment it began dashing, a tentacle appeared and blocked the way forward.

“Don’t avoid it, just fly across it!” Lin Huang said as he fired a God Crasher in front of him. A red glow appeared at the cannon and flew ahead toward the tentacle in their path.

The monster shook from the pain as the shot made huge gaping wounds in its tentacles.

“Go through it!”

Seeing the gaps in its tentacles, Thunder accelerated and flew out of one of the gaps like a purple bolt of lightning.

The monster noticed it and used another tentacle to block them again. However, before it managed to do that, Lin Huang shot another God Crasher at it.

A red glow landed on the tentacle after it was shot. Once again, the monster shook from pain, and in less than a second, Thunder managed to fly through its tentacle. Seeing Thunder escape its tentacles twice infuriated the monster. It was then that it decided to go all-out and use all twelve tentacles to go after Thunder. However, this did not concern Thunder since it was attempting to escape them by flying to a height that they could not reach. Regardless of how much the monster tried to reach them, it could only helplessly look at Lin Huang and Thunder escape.

Lin Huang was finally relieved as they managed to escape the monster. He then turned around and shouted at the monster that was roaring at him and Thunder.

“Hey ugly! I, Lin Huang, will remember what you did to us today. I’ll definitely kill you the next time I come to the coast.” He accidentally revealed his real name.

The monster heard what he said and roared even louder at them, vigorously waving its twelve tentacles. However, it was useless. Lin Huang smirked as he watched the helplessly infuriated monster. In less than a few seconds, the gigantic monster had become the size of an ant and completely disappeared from his field of vision as Thunder flew at full speed.

Chapter 676: The Supreme Whitesword Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The thirty-minute journey was smooth after escaping the sea monster. Lin Huang and Thunder did not even encounter any birds along the way as they arrived at the unknown island that he had pinned on the map. Lin Huang got Thunder to land where the Supreme Whitesword was last seen before recalling it back to card form.

Lin Huang looked around, but he did not see any trails of the Supreme Whitesword, so he summoned Bloody to help. The unfamiliar island was huge, and he would need one to two days to explore the entire island without any help. Bloody which was now a hazy purple cloud. It then released its transparent Leech Pods everywhere. In a couple of minutes, it had gotten the result and pointed its vine towards Lin Huang’s eight o’clock.

“It’s just three kilometers away from us.”

“That near?!” Lin Huang looked at the direction that Bloody was pointing at. Three kilometers had just exceeded the coverage of his territory.

“Let’s go!”

Lin Huang brought Bloody across three kilometers of jungle and arrived at where the Supreme Whitesword was. The Supreme Whitesword was chasing after an Armored Bull, but it seemed like it was having fun. It followed behind the Armored Bull and poked its body that was covered with armor. It did not look like he was planning to kill the bull.

Although Lin Huang and Bloody did not reveal themselves, the Supreme Whitesword could sense their existence. It then gave up chasing after the Armored Bull and stared at Lin Huang through the trees. Lin Huang was checking the Supreme Whitesword out too. He had seen this monster in the monster encyclopedia before, but it was his first time seeing it in real life.

The Supreme Whitesword looked no different from a human. Although it was covered in a white robe, including its arms and feet, its face was the same as a human’s with a couple of scars caused by slashes.

“A human sword cultivator?” The Supreme Whitesword moved and appeared less than ten meters from Lin Huang as he glared deadly at him.

“That’s right.” Lin Huang nodded. He was not surprised that the Supreme Whitesword could tell that he was a sword cultivator.

“You have powerful Sword Dao in you. I might be afraid of you if your combat level is higher, but now you’re just food to me.” The Supreme Whitesword grinned.

“I’ll absorb all your skills from you after killing you. Then I’ll be closer to quadruple mutation.”

“What a coincidence as I’ve got the same thought as you do.” Lin Huang grinned after hearing what the Supreme Whitesword said.

“I’ll kill you and get the Life Fire tinder in your so that I can obtain your Sword Heart.”

“If that’s the case, let’s see who’ll be killed first.” The Supreme Whitesword was confident in itself.

A sword arm that was almost 1.8 meters long came out of the white robe. The muscular arm was a regular human limb from the shoulder to the joint. However, the part below the joint lengthened into a sharp sword. Lin Huang was not surprised when he saw that. From the monster encyclopedia, he learned that the Supreme Whitesword had four sword limbs. Besides its sword arms, its legs were of the same structure whereby they were half-flesh and half-sword. It also had a tail hiding under its white robe with a short blade at the end.

All of its weapons were hiding underneath the white robe, and they would only come out when they were needed. Lin Huang then took out Ink when he saw the Supreme Whitesword’s sword arm. With Ink in his hand, Lin Huang released level-4 Sword Dao, and his aura peaked at an instant. Sensing that, the Supreme Whitesword was shocked, but it was soon relieved when it recalled how low Lin Huang’s combat level was.

“No matter how strong your Sword Dao is, everything is redundant without a powerful combat level.”

The Supreme Whitesword’s body was fading as his white robe swayed. It then appeared right in front of Lin Huang and slashed its silver sword arm towards Lin Huang’s torso like a lightning bolt. Lin Huang moved at the same time as it did. He swung his sword ahead, and there was a blue glow in the air as the sword was covered in Life Power.

The silver and blue glow collided in the air, causing the both of them to back off. Lin Huang was shot out hundreds of meters away with his feet deep in the ground while the Supreme Whitesword flew dozens of meters away with two deep paths under his feet. The single collision proved which one of them was on the winning side. Even though Lin Huang had used his powerful sword skill together with level-4 Sword Dao, he was still way behind the Supreme Whitesword. Now, he knew that it was impossible for him to kill the Supreme Whitesword with what he did.

“What a triple mutated Sword Dao monster! You’re even more powerful than all the immortal-level rank-6 monsters that I’ve ever met!” Lin Huang thought to himself. What he did not know was that the Supreme Whitesword was even more surprised than he was. The Supreme Whitesword did not understand how could Lin Huang, who was only a blue flame-level, managed to defend its attack and even managed to push it dozens of meters back. It was now interested in the young man that was standing in front of it.

“Human, I must admit that your ability is out of my expectations. You excite me. I hope you can stand longer for my next attack. Don’t die too soon, or else I’ll be disappointed.”

“I, on the other hand, hope that I can kill you easily so that I can level up to purple flame-level,” Lin Huang told the Supreme Whitesword what he thought honestly as he smirked.

“I guess that’s not going to happen.” The Supreme Whitesword grinned and rushed towards Lin Huang like a white glow.

Lin Huang picked up his sword and swung it at the Supreme Whitesword as the sword was covered in blue Life Power. The silver and white sword glows collided together again.

“Thunder Eclipse!”

Lin Huang’s sword that was covered in blue Life Power started releasing blue electrical arcs. He swung his sword so rapidly that only the light trails of the sword could be seen. Just as the swords collided, Lin Huang added sword 11 into the attack. The both of them backed off due to the collision, and the distance they were shot away to was the same.

Lin Huang came up with the overlaying Thunder Eclipse with another epic-level sword skill. It was his first time performing it in a battle, and he did not expect it to work so well, which managed to increase the strength of his sword swing to be the same as the Supreme Whitesword’s, so they were shot the same distance away from each other.

“Come on, don’t stop!”

Realizing that it worked, Lin Huang was all pumped up and shouted at the Supreme Whitesword He then dashed towards the Supreme Whitesword.

Chapter 677: Killing the Supreme Whitesword

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Blue and white flashes collided with each other in the air. Every time they clashed, an intense force rippled in the air. Just like tossing a stone into calm water, a strong wind was blowing everywhere. Although they were fighting in mid-air, all of the trees around the unknown island were destroyed as a result of the force.

Within a few minutes, almost a third of the trees on the island were obliterated. With the overlaying of the sword skills, Lin Huang was all pumped up to fight as he was getting more and more familiar with the technique that he had come up with. He would add in one or two sword skills in each attack, and the Supreme Whitesword felt the pressure gradually. The battle seemed to be at a tie at first, but Lin Huang was suppressing the Supreme Whitesword more and more.

Anyone who had no idea about Sword Dao could tell that the Supreme Whitesword was definitely on the losing end after watching the battle for three to four minutes. Lin Huang’s every attack made him back off hundreds of meters away while Lin Huang would only be shot less than ten meters away. Lin Huang did not plan to give the Supreme Whitesword a rest as he was more and more ferocious in his attacks, making the gap between the attacks shorter.

The Supreme Whitesword, which was already losing, had his rhythm taken away by Lin Huang. It became tense upon noticing that. Not wanting to hold back anymore, it flashed its second sword arm that was under the white robe. Its left arm looked the same as his right arm whereby the upper part was flesh, and the lower part was a long, silver sword that looked exactly like the one on its right hand.

Lin Huang was thrilled as he studied the Supreme Whitesword that was going to fight with both his arms. He would occasionally train his left hand when he was bored during his training, but he was more used to his right hand. Although he knew about the Supreme Whitesword from the monster encyclopedia, it was his first time encountering a monster that was fighting with both sword arms.

As the second sword arm slid out, the Supreme Whitesword that was almost defeated finally picked up his speed with Lin Huang. It was much agiler now since he had his second arm. Besides blocking with both arms, it would sometimes use its sword leg to attack. The swords on his legs were different from its sword arms as they were like scimitars. They were much broader, and although they were less penetrable than his sword arms, the effect of slicing was much higher.

Lin Huang had read about this in the monster encyclopedia before, and he remembered every single detail, so he was prepared. The Supreme Whitesword attempted to attack Lin Huang with his sword legs, but Lin Huang managed to avoid them. As soon as its four limbs were out, the Supreme Whitesword managed to turn the tables around, and the battle came to a tie again.

“Human, I’ve underestimated you. I’ve never expected a blue flame-level that has such abilities as you. I’ve given my all now to fight you.” The Supreme Whitesword had to admit that Lin Huang was a powerful opponent. “But if the battle remains stagnant, I’ll be the one winning as your Life Power will definitely be drained before mine.”

“I’m not sure if that’s true, but I must get your Life Fire tinder today!” Lin Huang shouted as a silver glow came from the side of his body as their swords collided. It was followed by a second and a third silver glow.

Soon, 360 silver beams of light dashed towards the Supreme Whitesword like silver fish swimming around him. The Supreme Whitesword did not expect the telekinetic attack from Lin Huang. It thought that even if Lin Huang had some other ability, it would be sword skills. The telekinetic flying daggers caught it off guard.

It was too late for the Supreme Whitesword to run as they were very close together. It then expanded his white robe to defend himself. Lin Huang smirked as he controlled the 360 flying daggers towards the Supreme Whitesword’s face. Although the white robe shielded him, its face was still showing. The Supreme Whitesword was shocked when it saw the flying daggers that were going to pierce through its face. Suddenly, the scars on its face cracked and its face was all bloody now. After its face ‘exploded’, swords flew out of his scars, colliding with Lin Huang’s telekinetic flying daggers which prevented them from getting to it.

Lin Huang knew that was the Supreme Whitesword’s ultimate move. He had noticed the scars on the Supreme Whitesword’s face, and he had read from the monster encyclopedia that the scars came from the absorbing of humans’ sword cultivation. Those who came to hunt for the Supreme Whitesword would have their sword cultivation absorbed after being killed. The cultivation would be transformed into scars whereby swords were kept beneath his face.

The scars were not only the Supreme Whitesword’s pride but also a survival technique. The Supreme Whitesword would not release the attack as it was just a one-time attack and the scars would disappear once released. It would also mean less pride for the Supreme Whitesword as it had one scar less now. Although the Supreme Whitesword’s face was all bloody now, there would not be any scars left on his face when the wounds recovered. The Supreme Whitesword backed off immediately after managing to block Lin Huang’s flying daggers.

In normal circumstances, standing closer to a psychic would be an advantage as a psychic was skilled in long-distance attacks. However, standing close to Lin Huang would mean that Lin Huang’s sword would attack the Supreme Whitesword and it would not be able to defend itself from Lin Huang’s telekinetic flying daggers. As he pulled away, all the Supreme Whitesword had to worry about was the flying daggers, but not Lin Huang’s sword.

Lin Huang knew what the Supreme Whitesword was thinking. He grinned sarcastically while surrounding the Supreme Whitesword with his 360 flying daggers without going after it. The 360 flying daggers were meant to prevent the Supreme Whitesword from running away. Meanwhile, Lin Huang held his sword Ink in his hand and mumbled Flowing Fire Sword to himself softly.

The blue Life Power on his sword turned into flames and burned brightly. The Supreme Whitesword soon sensed that something was not right and it looked at Lin Huang’s direction. It was shocked to see the flames on Lin Huang’s sword and felt an impending threat of death from it. It was the first time it wanted to attempt to repeat its unique skill, but it was too late as the telekinesis flying daggers completely surrounded it.

“This is called Flowing Fire Sword. It’s the most powerful sword skill that I have now. I respect you. Therefore I’m giving you my best so that you can die with pride. Also, don’t worry about your tinder as I won’t bring disgrace to it.” Lin Huang appeared less than a meter before the Supreme Whitesword out of nowhere and stabbed his sword between its eyes through his head.

Chapter 678: Leveling-Up to Purple Flame-Level! Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After killing the Supreme Whitesword, Lin Huang did not obtain a complete Monster Card, but he got a card piece instead. He kept the Supreme Whitesword’s carcass and summoned Kylie. He then extracted the tinder after entering Kylie’s mini world. Since Lin Huang was a sword cultivator, the tinder matched him perfectly and it only took around an hour and a half to complete the tinder integration.

“Congratulations, you’ve obtained Sword Heart.”

Lin Huang then looked at his body and saw a white sword shadow in his first Life Wheel. The sword was pointing downwards and was floating. The shadow was only the size of his thumb and it looked weak and of the virtual world.

Lin Huang then inserted sword cultivation into it and it started to solidify. At first, he was just inserting level-1 Sword Dao, making the white sword shadow solidify from its thumb-size to a meter long. It looked like a short sword that was carved from ice. As soon as it was formed, the Sword Heart started to rejected the level-1 Sword Dao insertion.

Lin Huang then inserted level-2 Sword Dao. The short sword then turned green and continued growing. It peaked at ten meters long and became emerald green. The Sword Heart looked like a gigantic jade that was inherited from someone’s grandmother. Soon, Lin Huang then started inserted level-3 Sword Dao. The Sword Heart then turned blue and eventually, it became a blue iceberg that was hundreds of meters long.

Later on, Lin Huang inserted level-4 Sword Dao. The blue Sword Heart then turned purple and stopped growing when it was 1,000 meters long. It now looked like a mountain that was made of purple crystal floating in the Life Wheel. Just when Lin Huang was ready to come back to reality, purple light shot out of the Sword Heart. The glow filled the entire Life Wheel and spread across the second, the third, all the way until the tenth Life Wheel. Each and every corner of Lin Huang’s body was covered in the purple glow.

Before the purple glow faded, all of the sword skill cards that Lin Huang had flown out accordingly as they entered the purple sword mountain in bluish-purple glows. Lin Huang’s heart skipped a beat when he saw that. He took a look at his exclusive card immediately. Fortunately, all of his Skill Cards were still there.

Lin Huang had learned more than 1,000 of sword skills and all of them, including Stardome, had been absorbed into the sword mountain. Soon, various swords appeared on top of the mountain. There were more than 1,000 of them. Lin Huang then realized that the swords were not real; they were the projection of his sword skills. As soon as the swords were formed on top of the sword mountain, the One Page Sword Scripture that was deep in his body just like Xiao Hei appeared on top of the sword mountain.

The One Page Sword Scripture that was only the size of a palm started to grow on top of the sword mountain and soon it covered the entire peak. Just when Lin Huang was trying to figure out what was happening, a golden glow shot out of the One Page Sword Scripture and engulfed the entire sword mountain. The purple crystal sword mountain started to shake vigorously and crack under the golden glow.

Lin Huang was shocked at first, but an epiphany came to his mind. It felt like a layer of film had been broken through whereby everything became clear in his head. The 1,000 sword skills were like 1,000 split screens arranged in front of him and every one of them was playing the scene of him practicing the respective sword skills. However, it was not messy to him at all. On the contrary, he was seeing each of them clearly…

Soon, the sword mountain started to break and collapse. Lin Huang did not notice the change in the sword mountain as he was focusing on the 1,000 screens in front of him. The mountain peak revealed its silver inner layer as it cracked. Following the growth, more and more purple crystals were falling. The purple crystals disappeared as they fell from the sword mountain and the silver inside was revealing more and more. It looked like silver patterns at first, but it became completely silver as the purple crystals were completely shed. It only stopped growing when it was 1,500 meters tall.

Just when Lin Huang was done watching the last screen, he noticed that the sword mountain was now completely silver. He was now on level-5 of Sword Dao, which was called the Void Breaker. He knew that he had been at the peak of level-4 and would have a breakthrough anytime, but he did not expect it to come so soon. As soon as the One Page Sword Scripture completed its transformation, it shrunk to its original palm-size and went back to where it had been like nothing had happened.

“Thanks!” The One Page Sword Scripture shouted at Lin Huang before leaving and did not bother if he would hear it or not. Coming back to reality, Lin Huang took a proper look at his body. His physical body and spirit had been strengthened. The fourth Life Fire in his ten Life Wheels appeared. The four Life Fires had changed from blue to purple. Even his Life Power was now purple. He was officially a purple flame-level now. All of his summoning monsters’ combat level had also increased from immortal-level rank-2 to immortal-level rank-3 automatically.

When Lin Huang came back to reality, he realized that it was already the next morning. It had taken him almost a day to complete the transformation and he did not know that time had passed. It was past 8 a.m. when he left Kylie’s mini world and came back to the unknown island. The sun was just rising. Instead of leaving the deserted island, Lin Huang summoned Bai, Tyrant, and the rest to start a killing spree on the island.

On the third morning, a day of recharging his Life Power fueled the fourth Life Fire in his body to burn at 50 meters. He had also completed ten cross-ranking kills. By using the Double Reward Cards, he had obtained 600 card rewards. The trip had finally came to an end. Lin Huang summoned his dimensional portal after recalling all of his monsters.

Chapter 679: News from Chan Dou

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After selling all the monster carcasses at the Sweep City black market, Lin Huang made some money and got back to Victoria City next to the Peaceful Ocean via his dimensional portal. He wanted to change his environment as he had been staying in Sweep City for more than a month. Victoria City that had beaches around seemed to be an excellent choice.

As he settled down in Victoria City, Lin Huang started to dwell on his training again and stayed in his hotel room all day. He was stuck practicing telekinesis earlier as he was restricted by his combat level and spiritual strength whereby he failed to divide more telekinetic threads. Since he had leveled up, he started practicing Seamless again.

After practicing for a day, he managed to increase the number of telekinetic threads from 8,000 to 9,000, but he came to a plateau again. He then started practicing Sword Dao the next day. His speed was obviously slower this time. Although he had reached Void Breaker, which was the level-5 of Sword Dao, he was still slow at learning Oblivion. When he had been practicing Illumination earlier, he would get up to 1,000 card pieces, and three practices would earn him a complete Skill Card. Including the time he spent looking at the video tutorials, it only took him 20 minutes to get a complete Skill Card.

However, Lin Huang could only master Oblivion after watching the tutorials for two to three hours and would only get 20 to 30 card pieces. Sometimes, he would just get slightly more than ten card pieces. The sword skill required tens of thousands of card pieces to make a complete card, and the most were 15,000 card pieces to form a card. Lin Huang had to spend the entire day and sometimes two days to get a complete Skill Card after practicing the skill hundreds of times.

“This is too slow. There are more than 700 sword skills. Even if I learn one a day, I’ll take two years to learn all of them.” After practicing for a few days, Lin Huang thought this method would not work. Since he did not have any better solution, he proceeded to practice anyway. The slow sword skill training meant the leveling up of his Sword Dao had slowed down as well. Lin Huang had been training for the past week at that dull, boring speed.

One night, Lin Huang’s Emperor’s Heart Ring started vibrating when he was training after 10 p.m. He picked up the call immediately when he realized that it was Chan Dou.

“Wow, it’s been a month since you last logged into the Genius Union!” Chan Dao smiled at Lin Huang as soon as the video call was connected.

“I think it’s just been a month.” Lin Huang looked at the date and realized that it was already 29th June.

“It’s the last day of June tomorrow. Will you be climbing the tree again?” Chan Dou asked.

“Forget about it. Even if I manage to climb a couple more checkpoints, I won’t be able to get to the 63rd one, so it’s meaningless. The monthly reward is nothing interesting anyway.” Lin Huang shook his head. He was not interested in the Stairway Tree’s monthly reward.

“It’s okay if you don’t log into the Genius Union, but your account will be temporarily suspended if you don’t log in for three months and the application to release the suspension is troublesome. You’ll be suspected permanently if you don’t log in for six months and you’ll need the organization director to submit the application for you. If you don’t log in for a year, you’ll be blacklisted by the Emperor’s Heart,” Chan Dou reminded him.

“I know. They do this so that they won’t waste resources on someone who’s dead. The Emperor’s Heart will treat someone as missing if one doesn’t log in for more than three months.” Lin Huang confirmed that he had heard of the condition from Yao Lan before.

“That’s right, so please log in before you reach three months.”

“Oh yeah, is there any update on the bizarre seed that you asked me about earlier?”

“I’ve been inserting Life Power into it throughout the 20 days, but nothing has happened. There’s no way for me to activate it.” Lin Huang did not hide the truth. He had seen the comments that Chan Dou posted to protect him and knew that he was a trustworthy friend.

“Perhaps your Life Power level is too low,” Chan Dou concluded after giving it some thought.

“Then, I shall put it aside and try again when I get to immortal-level.”

“Why not try inserting something else such as spirit, telekinesis, or Dao? I heard it doesn’t have to be Life Power. You can insert some other energy,” Chan Dou suggested.

“Another type of energy…” Lin Huang thought of Sword Dao. Would something beneficial happen to his cultivation if he were to insert Sword Dao?

“I’ll try that later!” Lin Huang responded.

“Is there anything that you’re looking for me for apart from reminding me to log into the Genius Union?”

“Yes, but that depends if you have the time or not.” Chan Dou nodded and smiled.

“I’m mainly training nowadays as my combat level is too low. I’d like to break through to immortal-level as soon as possible. I’m not exactly busy, so let me know what, and I’ll try to spare some time.”

“Someone discovered new ruins not far away from Division 3 today. The Union Government will launch the ruins officially within these few days. I heard that the ruins are only opened to holy fire-levels and immortal-levels whereby imperial-levels are prohibited from entering. The Division 3 Union Government has announced that Divisions 1 and two aren’t allowed to be involved in this. It’s only opened to the people in Division 3. I plan to apply for 30 seats for the Heaven Alliance, and I’ll include you if you’re interested.”

“Only 30?” Lin Huang thought that the quota was rather low.

“All of the organizations in Divisions 1 and 2 get 30 seats each. It’s set by the Division 3 Union Government.” Chan Dou’s smile held an element of teasing. “But that’s enough for the Heaven Alliance as we don’t have many members in Division 3 anyway. Including you, there are only 23 of us. I’m sending seven more just to fill the seats.”

“Didn’t they say that Divisions 1 and two aren’t allowed to interfere?” Lin Huang raised an eyebrow.

“That’s what they said to prevent the main members of the Genius Union from going. If any of us go, the other immortal-levels in Division 3 won’t stand a chance at all. They thought if the names that are submitted are unheard of, the applicants aren’t powerful. That’s why a full name list has to be included in the application. There might even be demigods there; they don’t want to let just anybody in.”

Lin Huang’s heart skipped a beat when he heard there might be demigods. An imperial-level would definitely see through his disguise, let alone a demigod. However, he was slightly relieved when he recalled that he still had four Disguise Cards with him to last him for four days.

“Besides me, who else is going?” Lin Huang asked.

“I wanted to bring all of us from Division 3 there since everything we get in the ruins will belong to us individually. Besides all of you, I’ll get some of them from the headquarters. They’ll send people who are immortal-level rank-7 and rank-8. There’s only one immortal-level rank-9 there. There’s two immortal-level rank-9s in Division 3. Three of them should be enough. I’m afraid the submission might fail if we have more,” Chan Dou explained.

“How about the other organizations?” Lin Huang asked.

“The Hong Alliance and the Tang Alliance are almost the same as us, but I’m not sure about the local organizations in Division 3. What I’m sure is that many of the immortal-level rank-9 seniors in Division 3 will be there, including those who have retired as well as imperial-levels from the Genius Union who have yet to level up. Also, the Overlord Alliance in Division 3 isn’t bad too. They are ranked No. 12 in the Genius Union. They have three immortal-level rank-9 supreme geniuses with them. I’m not sure about other organizations, but the competition is intense.”

“Alright then, count me in.” Lin Huang went silent for a moment before nodding and agreeing to join.

“Sure, I’ll let you know the details after the application has been approved. Prepare yourself within these few days.” Chan Dou hung up the call after reminding him as he proceeded to inform the rest.

“Ruins in a chaotic place…” Lin Huang was excited as he thought about it. He had never left the safe zone. The ruins would be the first chaotic land out of the safe zone that he would go to.

Chapter 680: The Bizarre Seed Has Hatched

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After hearing the news from Chan Dou, Lin Huang noticed it had become a hot topic on the black market and the Genius Union forums. Many of the Division 1 and Division 2 Genius Union members were complaining about the Division 3’s Union Government. They were ranting about the Union Government’s selfishness as the rest did not have any say about the ruins that were discovered.

Meanwhile, the people in Division 3 defended that they had the right to do that as the ruins had appeared near their area and the other divisions had no right to interfere. They were being generous for opening themselves up to the other divisions instead of shutting them away completely while some of the people from Division 3 insisted that the ruins should not allow any other member from the other divisions in at all.

As the three divisions wee throwing bombs at each other, the safe zones were just enjoying the show. The request orders in the black market were booming and people were asking about various items on the forums. They were getting ready for their trip to the ruins. Lin Huang thought about it and realized that he had everything he needed.

He had a couple of Transportation Cards and Escape Cards for survival, Transformation Cards and Provisional Combat Strength Upgrade Cards to level up his combat level, plus Trap Cards, Cloning Cards and Crippling Cards to help in the battles. Moreover, he had a bunch of immortal-level rank-3 monsters as well as God Crashers with him. If he were to give his all, even if he was not the top in the ruins list, he would be one of the most powerful survivors.

Lin Huang proceeded to train as usual after breakfast and scrolled through the forum. He had mastered another Oblivion sword skill by the time it was past 11 p.m. He took a shower and returned to his bedroom, exhausted. As usual, he took out the bizarre seed from his pocket and inserted Life Power into it. Suddenly, he recalled what Chan Dou said.

“Maybe I should try inserting Sword Dao instead. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try inserting Telekinesis a couple of days later.” Since nothing happened to the seed after inserting Life Power for a month, Lin Huang thought that either something was wrong with the seed or his Life Power. He then decided to listen to Chan Dou’s suggestion by inserting another energy.

Sword Dao was not exactly an energy. It was more like an Elemental Enlightenment that was a special energy. However, that did not stop Lin Huang from trying to insert his Sword Dao into the bizarre seed. As he held the seed in his palm, he inserted level-1 Sword Dao into it. Seeing that the seed had no reaction, he then proceeded to insert Sword Dao.

An hour later, the bizarre seed stopped absorbing his Sword Dao. Just as Lin Huang noticed it, he felt a pinch on his palm. He opened his hand and realized that the black seed had roots growing out of it which had pierced into his palm. Soon, he felt level-2 Sword Dao being released from his body into the black seed. That went on for more than two hours before the black seed started absorbing level-3 Sword Dao.

After more than four hours had passed, the black seed started absorbing level-4 Sword Dao when the sun was rising. This time, it took more than eight hours before the black seed started absorbing level-5 Sword Dao. It lasted for more than 16 hours until the black seed seemed to be full by the time it was past 6 a.m. on the third morning. As soon as it was done, it then disappeared into Lin Huang’s palm and entered his first Life Wheel with a black glow. Lin Huang observed closely and noticed that it had entered the silver sword mountain.

Lin Huang knew that the Sword Dao had completely activated the bizarre seed. It went into the sword mountain to start its own cultivation, so he had no idea what the seed would be in the future. As soon as the seed went into his body, he felt an overwhelming exhaustion. He would usually be alright if he did not eat, sleep, and rest for two days, but the insertion of the Sword Dao drained his strength. He then took a drink from the refrigerator and had a bowl of instant noodles before falling asleep on his bed.

He slept all the way until sunset when he was woken up by the vibration of his Emperor’s Heart Ring. It was Chan Dou who was calling. Lin Huang picked up the call immediately.

“You’re sleeping? It should be 6 p.m. over there. Why are you…” Chan Dou saw that Lin Huang was lying on his bed when the video call was connected. He did not understand it at first, but soon he seemed to have realized something.

“Ahh, you must have a chick with you.”

“Just say what you want to say.” Lin Huang did not bother to explain.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you and your chick. I’ll be quick so that you guys can proceed to do what you were doing.” Chan Dou was indulging in his misunderstanding.

Before Lin Huang could say anything, Chan Dou went ahead.

“The list that I submitted has been approved. I think all of the lists that were submitted by other organizations will be finalized within a day or two. If everything goes well, the Division 3 Union Government will gather all of you to head over to the ruins within three to five days.

“Many members from the underground organizations including Dynasty, the Purple Crow, the Heretics and the Saints are coming too. I never thought that the underground organizations would be interested in this. They’re ruthless. I can get other people to go if you would like to pull out.”

“No need for that. I’ll be there on time.” Lin Huang did not plan to retreat at all since it would not be his first time interacting with the underground organization.

“Since you’ve decided to go, prepare yourself these few days and get more items that can keep you alive. There will be Union Government staff contacting you before your departure,” Chan Dou reminded before letting out a smirk.

“Alright, continue what you were doing with the chick. I shan’t interrupt anymore.”

Lin Huang only realized that the sky was getting dark after hanging up. He got out of bed and washed his face. He started training again after ordering himself take-away food. Just when he was getting absorbed in his training, he noticed something different with his body. He looked inside and saw a three to four-year-old kid under the silver sword mountain in his first Life Wheel.

“What’s that?” Lin Huang was surprised to see a living thing in his Life Wheel. He became afraid as he had no idea how the kid had entered his body.

“Congratulations, you’ve obtained Sword Soul!” Xiao Hei’s voice was heard.

“You mean this kid is a Sword Soul?” Lin Huang thought it was unbelievable.

“Why can’t I remember getting this?”

Lin Huang had heard about the Sword Soul before. However, it was just a myth. It was said that in the ancient epoch, there were some powerful Sword Dao cultivators who could form Sword Souls in their bodies. However, nobody ever knew how and which level of Sword Dao a person would need to form a Sword Soul as nobody had ever done it ever since the new epoch.

Lin Huang was not even sure what could the Sword Dao do, so he was not even sure if such a thing really existed.

“You didn’t cultivate it. It hatched from your bizarre seed,” Xiao Hei said.

“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that the Sword Soul is in human form?” Lin Huang was going out of his mind.

“I don’t think this kid could be summoned to fight. What does it do then?”

“You’ll need to explore that on your own.”

Since Xiao Hei was not being helpful, Lin Huang decided to go back to reality. Before he did, the little thing noticed him and appeared at his feet while it smiled and waved at him.

“Carry me!”

Lin Huang was shocked, but he picked it up anyway. After some interaction, he realized that the little thing did not know many words, so it could only make simple conversation. Fortunately, the little thing was obedient and Lin Huang went back to reality after playing with it.

As soon as he returned, the first thing he did was to look for ‘Sword Soul’ on the Heart Network. There was a lot of information about it on the network, but none of them was useful. It was the same on the black market forum and the Genius Union whereby there was nothing useful when Lin Huang looked up the same keyword. Helpless, he decided to listen to Xiao Hei’s suggestion to explore on his own since he would not be busy for the next couple of days.