Sage of Humanity
Chapter 936 - 934: Take You to See the Hustle

The number of Sword Qi newly added within the sword gourd was neither more nor less, precisely nine in total.

Nine is the ultimate number; the heavenly numeration begins at one and ends at nine.

This number inevitably made Lu Ye pensive.

Because he had already slightly refined the sword gourd, he could clearly sense the existence of these nine Sword Qi, and could even perceive that these nine Sword Qi could be emitted at will.

In other words, these nine newly born Sword Qi were completely under his control.

The only thing was, he didn't know how powerful they were.

Lu Ye took out the Breath Fruit Core and spent 200 merit points to enter the Mirage Realm for a round of testing.

Moments later, he opened his eyes, his expression invigorated.

After a round of experimentation, he discovered that the Sword Qi within the sword gourd had extremely impressive destructive power. The power each Sword Qi could exhibit was equivalent to his full strike.

And this was without him even activating the sword gourd's inherent power, because the grade of the sword gourd was too high for him to activate its capabilities, only managing the destructive force of the Sword Qi itself.

If one day he could activate and bolster the sword gourd's power, the destructive power of the Sword Qi would certainly increase significantly.

After brief contemplation, Lu Ye hurriedly took out a large number of spoils Spiritual Artifacts from the storage space for the sword gourd to devour.

Every Spiritual Artifact put into the sword gourd would disappear in a very short time, transformed into nine Sword Qi.

This symbol of the Sword Weapon Sect obtained from Khong Khong was like a ferocious beast, devouring however many Spiritual Artifacts Lu Ye took out without limit.

Lu Ye had a lot of spoils in his hand, which he used to sell to the Heaven's Augury treasure vault for some merit in the past. But now, with his cultivation increased, merit wasn't very useful for him anymore.

It was just perfect to feed the sword gourd...

After an hour, under Lu Ye's perception, the number of Sword Qi in the sword gourd had already become innumerable.

But he quickly discovered a problem. Each Spiritual Artifact devoured by the sword gourd could be converted into nine Sword Qi, but the strength of these Sword Qi seemed to be related to the grade of the Spiritual Artifact, resulting in varying strengths of the Sword Qi in the sword gourd.

Without a comparison initially, he hadn't noticed this, but now he had.

He took out the Breath Fruit Core again and entered the Mirage Realm to experiment.

Eventually, he concluded that there were indeed differences in the strength of Sword Qi, directly associated with the grade of the Spiritual Artifacts devoured by the sword gourd. Higher grade artifacts produced stronger Sword Qi, and vice versa.

But even the weakest Sword Qi, once unleashed, was equivalent to his usual saber slash. The Sword Qi converted from top-grade Spiritual Artifacts, once stimulated, was almost indistinguishable from his full-force strike, and the Sword Qi from supreme-grade Spiritual Artifacts was even sharper!

Lu Ye temporarily refrained from letting the sword gourd devour magic-artifact class Spiritual Artifacts, primarily because he only had one Boulder Mountain Saber, and he couldn't bear to let the sword gourd consume it.

But according to the current conclusions, if the sword gourd could devour magic-artifact class Spiritual Artifacts, the potential Sword Qi power would likely exceed his original strength!

Lu Ye truly recognized the profound mystery of the sword gourd; with this treasure in hand, as long as there were enough resources, he could exert power beyond his own capabilities.

As Li Taibai, being a sword cultivator, he originally intended to take the opportunity to buy more flying swords from the Heaven's Augury treasure vault, but now it seemed completely unnecessary.

With the sword gourd in hand, what need was there for flying swords? Each Sword Qi was equivalent to a flying sword!

Li Baxian had once amazed Lu Ye by controlling a hundred flying swords, but now, how could his prowess be limited to just a hundred? Even a thousand or ten thousand poses no problem.

Of course, Sword Qi is different from real flying swords; once Sword Qi is shot out, it's gone, while flying swords can be retrieved.

He currently couldn't activate the sword gourd's inherent power, but if one day he could, the inherent power of the Sword Qi would change in ways yet unknown!

Lu Ye initially thought the biggest advantage he gained from the Sword Weapon Sect's secret realm was getting into the path of Artifact Refining, but now it seems the sword gourd was the greatest benefit.

With this sword gourd, he truly became a sword cultivator.

The originally top-grade Spiritual Artifact-class longsword had been devoured, so Lu Ye found another supreme-grade Spiritual Artifact-class longsword to replace it.

As for the initial plan to buy a magic-artifact class longsword from the Heaven's Augury treasure vault… that was no longer necessary.

A soft knock on the door was heard.

Lu Ye beckoned to Yiyi and Amber. The two understood, and Yiyi quickly entered Amber's body. Amber leapt over and was taken into the spirit beast sack by Lu Ye.

He got up and opened the door, and as expected, Tong Shuyao was standing outside.

"Junior Brother Taibai, you finally deign to see me?" Tong Shuyao had a somewhat displeased look on her face.

Primarily because she had already come to find Lu Ye several times in the past two days, but every time Lu Ye didn't respond. Cultivators often have times of closed-door practice, and she didn't want to disturb excessively, always coming with anticipation and leaving disappointed.

Lu Ye didn't want to see her either, nor did he want any entanglements with her, but constantly avoiding her wasn't a solution.

Moreover, since he had infiltrated the enemy camp, he naturally couldn't stay behind closed doors all the time; he needed to go out, walk around, and look around to make the most of the visit.

"What's up?" Lu Ye asked, his expression calm.

"Can't I come to see you if there's nothing?" Tong Shuyao pouted, hands behind her back, leaning slightly forward with a playful posture.

Lu Ye's gaze uncontrollably moved downward, secretly worried if this girl might lose her balance and fall to the ground.

Aware of Lu Ye's gaze, Tong Shuyao's face flushed slightly, she immediately stood upright, puffed out her chest, and grabbed Lu Ye's arm saying, "Come on, I'll take you to see some fun."

She didn't care whether Lu Ye agreed or not, and directly soared into the sky.

Lu Ye had no choice but to follow her reluctantly.

Flying along the way, there were many Ten Thousand Demons Ridge cultivators departing from the Dark Moon Forest Pass, all heading in the same direction, making it extremely lively.

Even cultivators who knew Tong Shuyao came to strike up conversations, but were mercilessly dismissed by Tong Shuyao.

Lu Ye immediately sensed numerous displeased glances wandering around him.

This reminded him of the previous warning from a Ten Thousand Demons Ridge cultivator, advising him to stay away from Tong Shuyao, otherwise he'd meet a bad end. Yet, that cultivator ended up dying reluctantly.

The destination seemed not close; they flew for quite a while without reaching there.

Lu Ye didn't ask too much, just looked around with an extremely curious expression, unsure what he was supposed to observe, but knowing it never hurt to take a look.

Tong Shuyao didn't make unnecessary conversation, and Lu Ye responded casually.

This made Tong Shuyao somewhat helpless, but she vaguely sensed a matter, which was that the Junior Brother Taibai beside her seemed inherently cold and not targeting her personally.

With this thought, she felt slightly better.

Finally, after flying about 30 miles, they arrived at a bustling place.

Lu Ye looked far ahead, seeing two figures engaging in continuous combat on an open field, spirit force surging, the fight extremely fierce. Surrounding the battlefield, near the Dark Moon Forest Pass, there were numerous cultivators gathered both in the sky and on the ground.

On the other side, there were also many cultivators gathered.

The two factions faced each other across the empty battlefield, in a standoff like water and fire mutually incompatible.

Lu Ye watched without understanding, unaware of what was happening.

As Tong Shuyao led him into the crowd and found a spot to stand, she watched the battle from above.

The two currently fighting were both combat cultivators, one using a saber, the other a spear, their cultivation at the Level 3-4 of the True Lake.

The disputes between combat cultivators were the most perilous, every move lethal, every stance breathtaking.

They were also the most exciting to watch.

These two were undoubtedly cultivators from the opposing factions, otherwise they wouldn't be fighting so intensely. But Lu Ye momentarily couldn't tell which was from the Haotian Alliance and which was from Ten Thousand Demons Ridge.

However, he focused more attention on the saber-wielding cultivator since he also wielded a saber.

Although his saber skills probably already far surpassed those of cultivators of the same realm, the saying "know yourself, know your enemy" applies here; Lu Ye would not become complacent because of his various opportunities.

As he watched, Lu Ye couldn't help but feel a bit puzzled.

For some reason, the saber-wielding cultivator seemed vaguely familiar to him, as if he had seen him somewhere before.

But upon thinking back, he was certain he had never met this person.

It was a rather strange feeling.

Upon closer look, he noticed another peculiar thing.

The saber skills route used by this saber-wielding combat cultivator gave him a very strong sense of déjà vu.

While observing, Tong Shuyao began explaining the current situation to him from the side: "Thousands of years of confrontation between the two factions have led to endless disputes. Bingzhou is divided into two, with the two factions occupying half each. At the front line, multiple mountain passes face off against each other. Some passes have intense battles, while others are relatively peaceful. Our side, at the Dark Moon Forest Pass, is one of the more peaceful passes."

"Even if it's peaceful, some conflicts are inevitable. Large-scale battles don't occur often, but small-scale private skirmishes like the one before us happen almost daily. Junior Brother Taibai, you're new to the Nine Provinces and the provincial guard, you probably haven't earned battle merits yet. Battle merit is extremely important to every cultivator. Those passes with frequent battles naturally offer opportunities to earn battle merit, but for us at Dark Moon Forest Pass and across at Jinglan Lake Pass, it's harder to earn merit because there's no enemy to kill during regular times."

"Hence, the cultivators at the Divine Sea Realm on both sides came up with an idea, which is the fights you see before you. Each victory rewards the winning cultivator with merit from the pass. I don't know the rewards at Jinglan Lake Pass, but on our side at Dark Moon Forest Pass, each victory grants 1,000 battle merits, and if you kill the opponent, you'll earn 2,000 merits."

Lu Ye nodded slightly, understanding the scene before him.

This was the excitement Tong Shuyao had referred to, the spectacle she brought him to witness.

In fact, it's not unique to Dark Moon Forest Pass and Jinglan Lake Pass; similar situations occur at many mountain passes on the frontlines of the two factions.

In the absence of a full-blown war, cultivators seeking battle merits can only depend on monthly stipends, but if their military rank isn't high, monthly stipends are limited.

Currently, Lu Ye holds the rank of Capital Commandant and enjoys Nian Yuexian's favor, holding dual roles with a monthly stipend of 60,000 battle merits. Other cultivators relying solely on monthly stipends wouldn't have enough merits to sustain their cultivation needs.

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