Chapter 39: Upheaval in the Essence of the Heavens and Earth
The surrounding area fell silent. No one dared breathe as they were filled with unrestrained fear towards Jiang Yao who hovered in the air as his hair and clothes were whipping in the wind.
His eyes completely disregarded the death of this woman and his demeanor was as cold as before while he stared down at the remaining people from the Gao family.
The Gao family looked at the corpse of the woman with undisguised anger and frustration on their faces. Not only did they lose their young Miss, but they also had to cough up a full five hundred thousand Earth Grade Spirit Crystals.
This was truly a disaster that had struck their Gao family. Even though it was a true disaster, they dared not show any disrespect towards Jiang Yao, they could only glare maliciously at the corpse and her direct family.
“We will go prepare the five hundred thousand Earth Grade Spirit Crystals right away,” the Supreme Elder of the Gao family said with a trembling voice. This was all the liquid assets they could scrape up. Even the elders and the younger members of the family would have to hand over their personal savings to be able to reach this number.
Their hearts bled, but they couldn’t vent the feeling of being wronged. If they uttered even the smallest word of displeasure they had no doubt that their entire family would be destroyed right away.
The audience wasn’t surprised when they saw that the Gao family decided to submit. In fact, they all expected it. After all, this was the Seventh Demon Prince of the Tiansong Empire. The most notorious person on the entire continent, and also the second strongest expert, only overtaken by his father, the Demon Emperor.
While Jiang Yao was busy settling his score with the Gao family, Luo Xiao obediently cultivated in their room. He’d eaten all three spiritual oranges, and his cultivation soared. The constant influx of energy into his meridians roamed his entire body before entering his Soul Palace, which constantly grew.
Suddenly, a boom shook Luo Xiao’s body as he broke through to the Low Sky Rank. A hurricane-like absorption appeared in his body, even more violently than before, directly snatching all the heaven and earth essence in the entire vicinity of the city.
This massive absorption from his breakthrough lasted for a few minutes, before Luo Xiao’s body was so filled with energy that he couldn’t absorb another drop of essence. The essence was so dense that his meridians were under great strain, causing pain to wreak havoc in his body.
Still, he continued to refine the energy and it slowly entered his Soul Palace causing the orb in his mind gradually expand. After breaking into the Sky Rank small cracks appeared on the orb, but instead of shattering it more closely resembled an egg hatching.
A dense mist of energy flowed out from this cracked orb, and slowly the orb’s shell melted into a golden liquid. This golden liquid formed a lake in the middle of his mind. The dense energy that came out from the orb congealed together until it turned into drops of liquid that dropped into the spiritual energy lake in his mind.
When the final drop of energy in his body had turned into spiritual energy, Luo Xiao slowly opened his eyes. A golden gleam flashed within his black pupils, and he breathed out a breath of black air containing all the impurities in his body.
As he woke, he was unaware of how long he’d been cultivating, but he felt strength surge through his body, a strength he had never felt before. He was excited and stood up clenching his hand.
Although he was a soul cultivator, his body was also strengthened by the sheer amount of heaven and earth essence that had poured into every cell in his body.
His body was exhausted, but this exhaustion came from cultivation. It was a pleasant sensation compared to the constant exhaustion he’d felt when he was sickly and weak.
“Although I already broke through, I shouldn’t stop now,” Luo Xiao muttered to himself as he sat down and started to cultivate again. This time, however, he didn’t trigger any great changes in the heaven and earth essence, it was just natural cultivation.
Still, many stood outside his door with complex expressions on their faces. The damage that had been caused by his cultivation was enough to enrage both god and man, but they couldn’t do anything about it. Their fear of Jiang Yao was greater than the anger they felt for having been forcibly stopped from cultivating.
Just as they were about to retreat, a cold voice sounded in their minds, “What are you all doing here?” This voice was filled with ice-cold killing intent causing the bodies of everyone to tremble uncontrollably and their minds going blank.
“We... We... We... He triggered an upheaval in the heaven and earth essence! We couldn’t cultivate because of him!” someone finally begrudgingly said, but he quickly shut his mouth again when he saw that the one who had appeared in front of them was a tall handsome young man with narrowed eyes and a dense killing intent.
“So what if he caused an upheaval in the heaven and earth essence?” Jiang Yao asked slowly, his voice seemingly saying that no matter what Luo Xiao did, it would be fine. He would have his back.
The speaker shook his head wordlessly, simply too scared to speak at this point in time.
“Scram, all of you!” Jiang Yao said. He spoke softly, but no one dared linger. Everyone fled back to their own rooms as soon as they could. It seemed that the changes in the heaven and earth essence were now finished. Since it had calmed down again, they could return to their cultivation.
Looking at their retreating backs, Jiang Yao frowned. He had picked up the Divine Nebula Art for Luo Xiao because it was the best cultivation technique that he had access to at the time.
He had never expected that this art, coupled with a few Spiritual Oranges would be enough to cause a disturbance in the surrounding heaven and earth essence. In fact, even he was astonished by this result.
He quickly dissolved the barrier he had placed around the room and entered to see how Luo Xiao was doing.
What met him was the sweet scent of oranges, alongside a dense cluster of heaven and earth essence that was gathered around Luo Xiao.
The young man was now obviously a Low Sky Ranked cultivator. His rate of advance was rather outstanding. Although he was in the lower ranks, and it did become more and more difficult the one moved up, he was also aware that to be able to reach the Sky Rank as soon as Luo Xiao had was outstanding.
Half of it was due to the Moon Anise that he had been forcibly fed and the other half was because his soul was of the Astral Soul grade.
On top of this, Jiang Yao had splurged on spiritual oranges. It was clear that these oranges had helped him tremendously, but how come he could so easily absorb so much of the energy that was within them?
When consuming pills, spiritual fruits, and other resources, only a part of the energy would be absorbed, while the rest would layer itself in the body and wait for a long time before it would slowly release its remaining medicinal properties.
Jiang Yao said nothing but sat down opposite Luo Xiao. He didn’t begin cultivating, instead, he just sat there looking at the younger man who was fully absorbed in his cultivation as he refined the heaven and earth essence into spiritual energy.
Time ticked by slowly. While Jiang Yao observed Luo Xiao, rumors about his visit to the Gao family spread throughout Heavenward City.
Everyone breathed in a mouthful of cold air and understood that this man was truly the terrifying Seventh Demon Prince. Although he hadn’t eradicated the entire Gao family, he had completely milked them dry when he asked for five hundred thousand Earth Grade Spirit Crystals.
The family was forced to sell their property and they could no longer be considered one of the most influential families within Heavenward City, ending up as a middle-ranked family, if not lower.
All of this just because one woman insulted a person she couldn’t afford to insult, and it proved to be a big lesson for the majority of the experts within Heavenward City.
These rumors quickly arrived at the information centers and various intelligence networks. There was especially one information center, called Silent Crows, that had previously contacted the Fourth Prince and given him the news about Jiang Yao.
The Silent Crows once more contacted the Fourth Prince. They told him everything that had transpired within the city, including the upheaval in heaven and earth essence that had appeared around Jiang Yao’s room in the hotel.
Although this was of much less importance than what happened to the Gao family, the Silent Crows paid extra attention to anything that had to do with Jiang Yao. They had people in the crowd watching his hotel room.
When the Fourth Prince heard this he was lost in thought for some time.
“You say that this upheaval in heaven and earth essence was when Jiang Yao was out to settle scores with this... Gao family was it?” He asked tentatively, feeling as if something were wrong.
The member of the Silent Crows nodded his head and affirmed what the Fourth Prince was saying.
“In that case, someone in the room was capable of causing such a commotion. Only heavenly blessed geniuses could do such a thing. You said that his companion was a High Earth Ranked soul cultivator?” He asked, and once more the Silent Crow nodded his head and assured him that he was correct.
“To cause a scene like this, it seems that Seventh Brother has found himself a small treasure. No wonder he is so protective of him,” he muttered to himself, so low that the man didn’t hear him.
“To cause a disturbance in the heaven and earth essence he has to be a cultivator with a Heavenly Soul. Heavenly Souls are one in a hundred thousand, but they’re still a little lacking when compared to an Astral Soul. Still, Astral Souls are as rare as Qilin horns and Phoenix feathers.”
“But I feel better now,” The Fourth Prince said and ended the conversation with the man from the Silent Crows after telling him to continue to look after any information he could get about his Seventh Brother.
“If he had truly fallen for a mortal, then I would obviously have used this person against him, but this is a way to mislead the enemy. This child is useful for him and he is novel. I know that Seventh Brother has been looking for an Astral Soul, but I guess he has settled for a Heavenly Soul instead.”
“I wonder what face he will have when I steal this Heavenly Soul, refine it, and consume it. He has traveled in the outskirts of our continent for too long, it would be great to see his angered face.”
The Fourth Prince couldn’t help but chuckle when he imagined the sense of loss that Jiang Yao would feel if he refined and consumed his Heavenly Soul that he’d found after so much time and effort.
If the Fourth Prince had known that Luo Xiao was an Astral Soul, his eyes would have shined full of greed and excitement. Consuming a refined Astral Soul would make him much stronger than he was now!
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone