Chapter 120: Countermeasure
Chapter 120: Countermeasure
Translator: StackThatCoin Editor: Hitesh
Wu Qi huddled up and shrunk his body. Dense energies of Earth element began to gather towards him from the surroundings, slowly shrouding his entire body. He started to sink into the ground inch by inch, and was about to leave this Prince Ren's Mansion with his escape art of Earth. Yet, at this moment, he heard the door of the abode opened up and an old man come through it. The old man had a rosy skin complexion and a thick beard, a dignified appearance and a majestic bearing. Slowly, he walked into the courtyard.
He was clad in a long, dark green robe, stitched with a few soaring green colored swallows. Apparently, it was the Imperial outfit for the Prince of Great Yan Dynasty. Although he saw both Lao Ai and Princess Ying Chuan were fully naked, this old man did not have any unusual expression on his face. Looking steadily forward, he bowed and bid his greeting to Lao Ai, "Master, your disciple has something to discuss with you."
Having nearly half of his body sunk underground, Wu Qi had his expression turned serious. He nodded his head briefly, then left this place using the quickest speed.
'Yan Xianchen, the Prince of Ren, is actually the disciple of Lao Ai? If this information were known by the public, perhaps Yan Dan would have wielded his sword and come attacking at this place. But, why should I provide this information to Yan Dan for free?' Wu Qi narrowed his eyes while traveling fast underground, pondering about the matter that Lao Ai had told Princess Ying Chuan. Suddenly, he sneered. 'This Lao Ai is indeed a person who has the desire to see the world plunged into chaos. I guess he must have been suppressing his desire for over two thousand years, and now it is the time for him to wreak some havoc.' Thought Wu Qi inwardly.
Usually, after one took a prolonged rest would be the time to think of making some moves. Since Yan Xianchen was Lao Ai's disciple, it also meant that a large group of Great Yan Dynasty's ministers, and an unknown number of vassal kingdoms, were now under the control of Lao Ai. For a peerless man of evil like him, the well-being and prosperity of Great Yan Dynasty was definitely not the reason that he remained hidden here for over two thousand years.
"Interesting, this is really interesting! Haha, I really wish to see what kind of expression will Yan Dan have after he learns that Lao Ai is hiding in Ji City." Wu Qi let out a naughty laugh, but then he shook his head, "No, this cannot be. Only after I have gathered the innate energies of all five elements and formed Gold Cores of five elements am I qualified to fish in these troubled waters. But as for now, it is still far from sufficient… I'm still too weak!"
Before he fully understood the background of this Great Sun Sect, and before he could find out the origin of this world, if he tried to interrupt anything here without careful consideration, even if he could gain some profits at the beginning, any careless mistake would bring him only death. No matter how magical the Scroll of Stealing was, Wu Qi was merely a cultivator of beginner Gold Core realm as of now, and he merely just formed his Gold Core of Water element. On top of that, he didn't even have any clue for the innate spirit object of Gold. So, how could he take the initiative to mess with these matters?
"Stay low, I should really keep a low profile now. Regardless that I am the inheritor of the Scroll of Stealing or the disciple of Underhand Sect, I'm a man that travels thousands of miles just to seek wealth. What does the destiny of Great Yan Dynasty have anything to do with me?" Wu Qi kept reminding himself the role he played. Using escape art of Earth element, he left Prince Ren's Mansion, found a remote and desolated alley and came back up to the surface at a corner.
He sent out his divine sense and covered an area of roughly a mile from edge to edge. He then carefully looked at the sky. There were a few Sky Patrolling Eagle Guards wheeling in the sky far away from him, and there weren’t any of them near him. He hastily changed into a Kingdom Supervisor uniform of West Supervisor Court, then strode straight toward the direction of West Supervisor Court located at the west of Imperial Palace.
Although West Supervisor Court could not interfere with any state affairs of Great Yan Dynasty, for all the 37 vassal kingdoms on the West of the dynasty, it was a grandfather-level court that sat aloft on their heads. Therefore, when Wu Qi wore the uniform of Kingdom Supervisor and walked down the street in Ji City, he immediately attracted much attention. While receiving all kinds of glances along the way and acting as if nothing was on his mind, Wu Qi came to the front entrance of West Supervisor Court. After he showed the identity token to the soldiers standing guard, he went straight to the court.
He didn't travel far just now, but there were already quite a few secret agents following behind him, most probably from the Scouting Office. As the number one loyal subordinate of Duke Yan Le, Wu Qi did not follow Lu Chengfeng to work in West Supervisor Court, which was what he was supposed to do, but had gone missing half-way for a period of time. For those people who had their eyes on them, there was a great story they could fabricate with his disappearance. It was especially true when those guards on a few layers of city gate didn't find out how Wu Qi came into the city. The mysteriousness of this could easily become the evidence for those who harbored bad intentions.
Standing before the entrance of West Supervisor Court, Wu Qi turned his head and gave those secret agents a few glances over his shoulder and laughed. Upon seeing his laugh, those secret agents' expression instantly changed drastically, then quickly spun and left. Wu Qi didn't intend to do anything but merely scare them off. After doing that, he swaggered past the entrance and was immediately greeted with a loud voice which appeared to be roaring furiously.
"It was us, the Gao Ling Kingdom, who discovered this gold mine first. Chang Lang River is also part of Gao Ling Kingdom's river system. What rights does the Li Shan Kingdom have that makes you think you can split the profits with us?" The voice sounded like the clashing of metals, shrill and jarring, and it was so loud that the entire main court was vibrating due to it, with dust falling off from the ceiling.
The West Supervisor Court was built in the most traditional fashion of Great Yan Dynasty's court. There was a main entrance at the forefront, and upon entering it came a screen wall. Behind the screen wall was a wide field, with two rows of offices placed on both sides of it. They were the offices where the officers of the court attended to their daily tasks. At the far end of the field was a large hall, the place where the West Supervisor himself handled the official tasks. The loud voice was heard coming from this main hall.
Wu Qi strode through the field with the width of three hundred feet and the length of nearly one thousand feet. From the offices on both sides, he saw some officers poking their head from the door and peering towards the main hall. Wu Qi let out a cold snort, his voice cold and frigid, going straight into the ears of these officials. Only with that did they discover the arrival of Wu Qi, and with an embarrassing smile, they quickly retracted their head and continued working on their tasks in their offices.
Wu Qi smiled faintly and walked straight into the main hall. Then, he saw Lu Chengfeng, who was sitting behind a narrow table placed at the far end of the hall, like a wooden statue. Both of his palms had formed into a lotus seal and were placed before his dantian. His eyes were staring at a straight line down his nose, his eyelids hanging down and not exposing his vision. He simply ignored the group of burly men who appeared to be fighting fiercely in the main hall, and was focusing all his attention on cultivating.
In this main hall which was three hundred feet in both length and width, Yan Bugui, Luo Kedi, Ma Liang, and a few other men were seen standing near the wall on left and right. Except for Yan Bugui, who was watching with high vigilance at two groups of people, who appeared to be fighting in the center of the hall, all the other men had had their minds wandering to somewhere far away. For Zhang Hu, it was most possible that he was thinking about the new intimate ‘friends’ he met in some brothels, as he was drooling right now. Luo Kedi and Ma Liang, two warriors of Xiantian realm, were having their eyes closed and regulating their breath silently, just like Lu Chengfeng.
In the center of the hall, a tall man, clad in a light-yellow war robe and a chainmail underneath, was shouting and yelling. Judging from his voice, he was the emissary from the Gao Ling Kingdom that Wu Qi heard just now. Right next to him stood a young man, clad in a dark-green war robe and a half body armor. His right shoulder was exposed, and on his left hand, he wore an armguard which was a lower tier magical item. He was emanating an indistinct ripple of energy, and was arguing with the emissary of the Gao Ling Kingdom in a loud voice.
Beside these two men were clustered two groups of retinue from the Gao Ling Kingdom and the Li Shan Kingdom, about a dozen of them from each group. They were cursing at each other's mothers and ancestors, pulling and pushing at each other at the same time. It made them look like a group of unregistered prostitutes on the street trying to fight for a potential client. If not because they were at the main hall of West Supervisor Court, this group of retinues who possessed the cultivation of at least forty to fifty years would have broken into a fierce fight.
With quiet steps, Wu Qi walked into the main hall, along the wall on the right and bypassed this group of emissaries who seemed like a group of madmen. Stealthily, he came beside Lu Chengfeng, then lowered his voice and asked, "I thought it was only for a gold mine? Why are they fighting in such a desperate manner? The strength of both the Gao Ling Kingdom and the Li Shan Kingdom is stronger than the Lu Kingdom, and a gold mine will not decide their future destiny. Is there really a necessity for them to act like this way?"
Lu Chengfeng opened his eyes as two streams of white gas shot out from his nostrils soundlessly. He smiled on looking at Wu Qi, then lightly tapped on a scroll placed on the narrow table in front of him and said, "It is not merely a gold mine. This is the intelligence that was just sent to me from West Wind Guard of Scouting Office. The gold mine with approximately eighty million gold is just an associated mineral. Underneath the gold mine is a purple-gold mine that stretches thirty miles long. Both kingdoms had extracted some purple-gold essence of excellent quality. Yet, underneath the purple-gold mine is an energy stone mine of Gold element, and the quality is supreme. Currently, both kingdoms and the secret agents of West Wind Guard are yet to find out the radius and quality of that energy stone mine."
With a flip of his sleeve, Lu Chengfeng shook out a bean-sized energy stone which was glinting and dazzling. Then, he said indifferently, "This is the sample energy stone that one of the West Wind Guard secret agent obtained from a Master of Mining that examined the mine. It is an upper tier Gold element energy stone of excellent quality, and the property is extremely pure. In Great Yan Dynasty, there are only seven mines that can produce Gold element energy stones of such quality."
Wu Qi picked up the tiny energy stone of Gold element and sensed an extremely pure Gold element energy from within, that felt like a razor sharp blade. He nodded his head. Among all energy stone mines, the most commonly found and of the lowest value were the energy stone of Earth element, or Earth element mixed with other elements. As energy stone mines were buried under the ground, and the ground belonged to Earth element, thus energy stones of Earth element were the most common among others. Sometimes, they were mixed with Fire or Water element.
Usually, Fire and Water element energy stones could be found near some volcanoes or lakes. Therefore, the value of them was slightly higher than of Earth element. But they were also quite common to be found. Contrary to them were the energy stones of Wood and Gold element. Gold element energy stone was an associated product that was only produced near an enormous gold mine. It was extremely tough to be extracted, and was very difficult to form. As for Wood element energy stone, unless it was a blessed land where the natural energy of Wood element gathered, it was impossible to find any Wood element energy stones that were produced in nature.
At any rate, among all energy stones, the rarity of Gold element energy stone ranked the second highest. Especially for this Gold element energy stone that did not contain any impurities, not only it could aid in cultivation, it was also a must-have supplemental material when crafting all kinds of divine weapons. Furthermore, for those powerful offensive formations, they could only be activated by using pure Gold element energy stone as the core of energy, or else they could never unleash the frightening offensive strength of Gold element.
"Princess Ying Chuan will come to meet with young master later. Young master, you can just agree to her request. Let Tie Clan split from the Lu Kingdom and establish their own kingdom. But, young master needs to obtain a promise from her: the army of Lu Kingdom has to help the army of Tie Clan in attacking the Gao Ling Kingdom, and the Li Shan Kingdom will join the force as well." Wu Qi sneered and continued, "The Gao Ling Kingdom and the Lu Kingdom are rivals for generations, so they will not reject young master's condition."
With a soft voice, Lu Chengfeng asked, "Join forces with the Li Shan Kingdom? Alright, then how about that ore vein?"
Wu Qi whispered, "I'll have a talk with that emissary of Li Shan Kingdom. The army of Lu Kingdom will help the Li Shan Kingdom in attacking the Gao Ling Kingdom, and once they have occupied the ore vein, Tie Clan will own seventy percent of the yield as the foundation for the establishment of the new kingdom. If they don't agree to this, we will join forces with the Gao Ling Kingdom immediately. In any case, we will need to take seventy percent of the ownership. In addition to that, all the energy stones that the Li Shan Kingdom extracts will be purchased by us according to the market price."
He pondered for a brief moment, then continued saying, "When having the discussion with Princess Ying Chuan later, young master, try your best in gaining extra advantage whenever you can. We must own Little Meng City in Three Mountains Province. It is not our business of how much land the Lu Kingdom will cede to Tie Clan, but Little Meng City of Three Mountains Province is our private property."
Without the slightest hesitation, Lu Chengfeng agreed to all of Wu Qi's suggestions.