Simmering Scheme
Mu Yu mused, It’s going to take us, at least, four hours to teleport to the seventy-first floor and then it’ll be another six hour wait to reach the fourth floor. Plus, Gui Die isn’t going to be waiting for us. The fourth floor should connect to three other floors in another ten hours, and there’s no doubt she’ll leave. There’s no way I know how long she will spend on each floor to pinpoint her location. Damn this!
“Mu Yu, thank you for saving us from Ghost Gate,” expressed Lu Xiong.
“I also owe you my thanks. I thought you were after Ocean Archfiend’s Thousand Inch Ocean Ruler,” added the dragon tortoise.”
“Don’t spout that sort of tripe. Mu Yu would never do that. He is Lord True Dragon’s friend, our friend,” admonished Lu Xiong.
Mu Yu had no opinion on the matter. He did have a question, however. “Where did you find Thousand Inch Ocean Ruler?”
“I found it on the eighth floor, and then Ghost Gate’s duo noticed I had it, which led to their attempt to mug me. I had to run because of their twins assisting them, consequently bumping into Dragon Tortoise here. Soon enough, Ghost Gate’s duo caught up, and you know the rest.”
Mu Yu didn’t care to ask how Lu Xiong found Thousand Inch Ocean Ruler since it didn’t matter to him. Having said that, it was safe to assume Lu Xiong used a certain technique to reveal its whereabouts. He, instead, queried, “What are your plans now?”
“… We will find the floor Ocean Archfiend His Majesty is sealed to release him from his seal.”
“Do you know which floor he is sealed on?”
The two fiends consulted each other with a nod, and then Lu Xiong answered, “According to the souls’ on this island’s prediction, he is sealed on the top floor. Unfortunately, all the exits are random, so we can only try our luck.”
“You don’t need to try your luck. I know how to reach the ninety-ninth floor,” Mu Yu stated.
“Really?”
“We don’t earn anything for lying to you. You believe what you choose to. We’re not even interested in finding him,” the dragon vine grouched.
Lu Xiong bowed. “I sincerely apologise, Lord True Dragon. I was not suspecting Mu Yu. If he can help us find His Majesty, we would be beyond grateful.”
“Whatever. Head back to the last floor – the one with the snowy mountain. Wait for half an hour and then take the exit, which will take you to the twenty-sixth floor. You will need to wait another four hours before you exit the twenty-sixth floor, which will take you to the thirty-first floor. Wait for an hour there before you leave it…”
Lu Xiong scribbled down the twelve-step journey that’d take thirty-two hours onto a beast parchment. He still found it hard to believe Mu Yu had the entire pagoda in the palm of his hand, but he’d rather not anger the dragon vine again. In addition, he couldn’t think of any harm in trying.
“Where will you be going, then?” inquired Lu Xiong.
“To clobber Ghost Gate’s group. Get going, or the route will change in another thirty minutes. The timing I gave you is crucial, so make sure you stick to schedule.”
Mu Yu had to wait for another two hours before he could get back on track to reaching the eighty-first floor, which gave him time to simmer on how to use his black and white spiritual energy against the lunar race.
“Here’s what I don’t understand. When we met Chi Yue, its corpse water also drained your spiritual energy, so why wasn’t it affected?” questioned the dragon vine.
“Simple: balance,” responded Mu Yu. “The spiritual energy it absorbed had an equal balance of death qi and life qi. When Zi Yuan absorbed it, I had skewered the balance prior. Speaking of which, I’m becoming more familiar with manipulating the two spiritual energy sources.”
“Why doesn’t Wood Spirit work on them, then? Wood Spirit is also brimming with death qi.”
“Why this, why that? How can you even be so stupid, Big Earthworm? Wood Spirit is a vitality entity at its very core. Even though death qi has contaminated it, it’s not pure death qi.”
“He’s right. That being said, I’m only going to split the two when facing those freaks,” Mu Yu stated.
Thankfully, nobody raided the floor during the time Mu Yu waited there.
***
“I pray Mu Yu can realise my wish to release me from this mundane and repetitive life,” Helian Kong prayed to himself, feeling tired of being paranoid as the two races kept each other in check outside the pagoda.
Gui Yeming, who distanced himself from the ground together with Gui Yuzi, conveyed, “I wonder if Gui Ximing has reached the eighty-first floor yet. World Manifestation Cycle Seal is our only hope of finding Walk-in Heart Genesis now. If we cannot find Walk-in Heart Genesis…”
“… It’s not hard to locate Walk-in Heart Genesis or divine lunar race. I once overheard a secret about the pagoda when Reverend Xuan Jizi was alive. Gui Ximing is also quite the kid; he won’t disappoint.”
“When do we deal with the souls on the island?”
“There’s no rush. Since they’re exponentially stronger than souls outside of the island, we will have made a big lump sum if we can turn them into our magical weapons. Wait until Helian Kong teaches that kid how to defuse Retrograde Formation, though. Else, we have no means of controlling the souls here.”
Gui Yeming focused his gaze on Helian Kong. “I insist on controlling Helian Kong! He wishes he could be released. I want him to keep his consciousness and force him to kneel before me! I want him to live in humiliation!”
“He won’t be going anywhere; none of the souls on this island will go anywhere once the domain formation is removed. Even the fiends will become our yin soldiers and ghost slaves!”
Nobody was aware the scheming duo were stealthily leaking ghost qi into the atmosphere in preparation to spring their wicked scheme.
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