章 49: The Inheritance Begins
Whilst Yaan was trapped within the strange space, undergoing a battle of souls, in the outside world, his body and the golden armour were hidden from view by a white and black light. This white and black light was painful to look at, the two colours seemed to form a visual contradiction. Even the North Ghu City Lord couldn't glance at it for more than a second without feeling nauseous.
The lights completely hid everything within, including the armour's aura. The white-black aura replaced the armour's aura, but that in itself was enough to attract the attention of thousands of stunned Qi masters in the vicinity. In the end, the City Lord had to force everyone within one mile of his residence to leave. He realised that if Yaan returned unharmed, as unlikely as that may be, it would be best to keep this entire ordeal a secret.
That armour was definitely a heavenly treasure the likes of which Ghu Province had never seen before. No, perhaps such a treasure was unknown even to the continent as a whole!
That said, the armour thoroughly terrified the City Lord. He wanted nothing to do with it, Yaan could keep it…in fact, Yaan absolutely had to keep it! The City Lord didn't want it, but having that thing fall into the wrong hands was a calamity waiting to happen!
Even though the City Lord knew that Yaan was a demonic path cultivator, that was a very vague and perhaps even misleading description. Yaan didn't seem like the type to cause chaos for fun, nor did he come across as any sort of power crazed warlord. Well, the City Lord couldn't claim to know Yaan that well, but he at least seemed to a be a relatively calm and rational person. At the very least, he wouldn't use the armour to create trouble in a short period of time.
Wup!
Suddenly, the black-white light dome vanished, revealing Yaan's collapsed figure within, holding the now very ordinary looking golden armour. The City Lord was hesitant, but ended up cautiously moving Yaan inside using a flying carpet treasure, making sure not to touch the armour even slightly.
He slept for nine days, but when Yaan woke up, he felt surprisingly refreshed.
"How do you feel? The armour…is it safe…?" The City Lord immediately appeared besides Yaan's bed with a calm expression, but a trace of fear was hidden deep within his eyes. He had stayed by Yaan's side without blinking these past few days…after all, he wouldn't be able to relax until he confirmed that this terrifying armour had been taken care of. In his eyes, this was no treasure, but a physical manifested calamity!
Yaan blinked, then turned towards the golden armour on the bed besides him. He silently reached out his hand and touched the gold plating with one finger.
Suddenly, a stream of information flooded into his mind. He was startled, but he had already experienced something similar back in that strange place when the mysterious woman taught him the binding seal. If not for that experience, this would be very difficult to tolerate.
After a few seconds, Yaan removed his finger and looked at the armour oddly.
"It's safe…I managed to bind the treasure spirit." He finally said. The City Lord couldn't help but breath out a sigh of relief. However, after he calmed down, he stared at Yaan whilst pondering something. His gaze flashed with a strange glint, but he said nothing and kept his thoughts to himself.
Yaan politely excused himself after saying that he needed to study the armour to ensure the binding remained stable. This was untrue, but the City Lord didn't know that. Regardless of any doubts he might have, the Ghu Clan Grand Elder wouldn't take any chances, it was best to let Yaan go.
Really, Yaan just didn't want to explain that strange experience from before. That space, seeing his own soul, the golden giant…that mysterious woman. When he thought back to how casually he'd addressed those two terrifying beings, he shivered slightly and realised that he had definitely been in an unusual state of mind the entire time!
He didn't understand any of it, and based on the City Lord's shock, Yaan determine that his experience was not the norm when binding a soul treasure.
After returning to his temple in the inner sector, Yaan didn't continue training immediately, but instead spent three full days processing the information transferred into his mind from the armour. He quickly realised that he was unable to understand 99% of it, he was simply too weak.
All he knew was that to properly activate this armour, he needed to strengthen his soul to the level of an origin soul as the bare minimum requirement. Even then, he would likely receive backlash if he was hasty, even when making use of the treasure's most basic functions!
For now, he simply wore the golden armour beneath his usual robe. It was oddly flexible and didn't feel like metal at all. Strangely, it shrunk to perfectly fit his small stature after he put it on. Since it was so thin, Yaan opted to wear the armour like a vest, hidden below his robe.
Even if he couldn't activate it, this was still an incredible armour after all. Yaan was confident that nobody in the inheritance would be able to damage it at all, let alone pierce through it.
As for the knowledge the armour transmitted into his mind…he couldn't fully understand this information, but what he did understand was a bit shocking.
It seemed that this treasure was incomplete, it was actually one of four in a set!
Celestial demon armour, celestial demon helmet, celestial demon sword, celestial demon boots.
Usually it was only possible to bind a single soul treasure at any one time, unless you forcefully cut the connection and endured the severe backlash. However, these four treasures were a set, a single being could actually bind all four together!
He had the armour, but there were no clues as to the possible locations of the other three treasures.
Yaan laughed at himself and shook his head. It was already a shocking stroke of luck that he somehow succeeded in binding this armour, but to find, and also bind the other three? Attempting such a thing with his meagre strength would be asking for death. He had only dared to bind this armour because the self-activated treasure caused him to feel the approach of his death, there was simply no other choice in that moment of crisis.
As the inheritance opening drew near, the City Lord delivered Yaan some of his requested goods, but he no longer had the time to use everything. He made sure to properly use the Rank 3 tendon tempering and blood refining pills though.
Neither of these pills were simple to use. Even for Yaan, he was only able to endure, and to maximise the effect, thanks to the many supplementary resources sent by the City Lord.
During this time, the whole Northern Ghu Province was going through an upheaval.
In a matter of two weeks, nearly every cultivator on this side of the province knew about the Yuso Clan's destruction, and the Ghu Clan's repossession of their mountain!
The Yuso Clan's name was slandered and dragged through the mud, whilst the Ghu Clan and the other eight Northern factions who took part in the assault on Yuso Mountain, were praised as the province's heroes. The fact that the Yuso Clan hid the existence of the spirit heart, despite knowing that it was attracting an ever growing calamity scale beast tide, made people despise them.
At first, the City Lord didn't think much of it when Yaan said he wanted the Yuso Clan's corpses, so he didn't mind agreeing to Yaan's terms in their deal. In these terms, the Ghu Clan would refine as many of the Yuso Clan's corpses as possible into corpse puppets prior to the inheritance, giving all of these refined puppets to Yaan and Nadda.
The City Lord didn't expect that all of those corpses would be sold in Nadda's auctions within a single week! But also, the average sale price of each corpse increased by a factor of 20 compared to the usual prices! On the final day of the auction held by Nadda, this number increased to 100!
The mixture of fear towards the inheritance that was exacerbated by their recent stresses, combined with everyone's total lack of corpses since they were all used up against the Yuso Clan, led to around half of the participating Qi masters buying at least one corpse puppet at such insane prices!
Nobody realised that stirring fear and unease into the city's population was part of Nadda and Yaan's plan. This wasn't difficult, they only started two or three rumours, whilst making sure that the Ghu Clansmen learned about the coming war early, to build up their killing intent in the city. Having the Zue Clan rush out of the city prior to the attack, followed by the Yuso Clan giving chase, was simply icing on the cake to implant anxiety into the hearts of the masses.
This last week before the inheritance ground opened flashed by. Yaan managed to use the two Rank 3 unique body tempering pills, then took the final two days to rest and recover.
His body was certainly stronger than before, but due to his extreme efficiency in using these pills after much practice, his vital energy didn't increase by much when considering the value of these pills. But what he had achieved, was tempering his fleshly body to the utmost degree!
Overall, his vital energy was now at 19%. If he wanted to continue improving with his previous speeds, he would need to use many valuable resources intended specifically for increasing a body cultivator's vital energy. Such items that were both powerful and safe enough for Yaan to use were not only expensive, but also very rare. If they did exist, then it was within the inheritance; sometimes the inheritance gave out the pills, but not the pill recipe, making them near impossible to obtain.
Body cultivation wasn't common at all, at least not in the Ghu Province. Luckily, the Ghu Clan was more advanced in this area of alchemy than most due to their clan's ownership over the inheritance opening site. Even then, such pills were expensive beyond their rank.
Normally, body cultivators would just settle for using other less specialised and much more affordable pills, but training this way would definitely take many times longer. Taking the final step and reaching the peak of the realm with such ordinary resources wasn't really possible either.
Obtaining what Yaan really needed would take the City Lord some time, but it was no matter, since Yaan had no time to use those things right now anyway.
Besides, amassing a large quantity of wealth was actually inconvenient for Yaan right now. He couldn't use spatial rings, so he could only take the most essential items with him into the inheritance site when it opened. As for his current wealth, he had most of it converted into Rank 4 and even Rank 5 recovery pills, as he could carry these within a leather satchel which he kept inside his robe. The remainder of his wealth was stored by Nadda, as Yaan had no secure storage facility of his own, or at least nothing that he was willing to leave alone for a potentially extended period of time.
Today, the legendary inheritance ground would open once again.
Factions from all across the Northern province sent their best, battle hardened disciples to temper themselves and test their luck inside. There were also those who travelled from further south, but these were mostly the Ghu Clansmen from their other territories.
Tempering youngsters through danger and hardship was the Ghu Clan's philosophy, so of course they would send many of the youngsters to this place. There was no such thing as a Ghu Clan Elder with weak battle power, or lacking experience. Each and every single clansman who survived to the Core realm was not only a powerful cultivator, but a ruthless individual who knew how to survive in this world.
Such figures could be seen all around this plain looking grassland, just two miles West of the lake that held North Ghu City. There were also scores of lower realm Qi masters, but almost all of them were either hiding their auras, or attached to a group supervised by an Elder level figure.
Whilst a high layer Qi Temple realm Qi master wasn't weak, such a lone individual that could threaten the other participants wouldn't be able to enter easily. The Elders wouldn't allow such threats to freely enter the inheritance…they would be forced to either join a group, leave, or die.
Anyone below the Qi Temple realm was also pressured to join a group, but their measly power wasn't a threat to the participants, so they wouldn't be chased away or killed. Still, under the terrific aura of a Core realm Elder, most chose to submit and joined a group silently.
The Ghu Clan formed a group of their own, dead centre in the middle of the huge sea of Qi masters. The group as a whole emitted a gloomy, threatening aura, with unhidden killing intent freely spreading out towards anyone who dared approach them.
In total, there were around 300 Ghu Clan participants this time, with over 200 of them travelling from other clan branches. This was certainly more than they usually sent, but supposedly, the City Lord felt that with Yaan present, it might be worth investing a bit more into this expedition…
"Nadda…" Yaan leaned towards the ghoulish young man and nudged him. He turned to Yaan and raised an eyebrow on seeing Yaan's frown.
"The clan forbids killing amongst the group in the inheritance, but, how likely is it that everyone will stick to this rule?"
"Oh, so you were worried about that…" Ghu Nadda nodded understandingly. He then smiled wryly and slightly shook his head.
"Nobody will kill a group member if there will be surviving witnesses….that's all you can be certain of…"
Yaan sighed and gave a slight nod. He expected as much. Looking around at this group, this supposedly unified clan…despite all standing together, very few people spoke to one another, stood near others, or even looked at their fellow clansmen. They acted extremely distant…perhaps many of them didn't actually know any of their peers personally.
At most, there were some pairs or groups of three, people that clearly trusted one another and considered themselves a true group. Such trust was rare amongst demons, it could only be obtained after proving yourself, showing that you were worthy of such trust.
Even Yaan didn't fully trust Ghu Nadda, nor did he trust Nadda's great grandfather, the Peak Demon Core realm Elder in charge of organising the Ghu Clan for this trip.
Yaan always thought that this Elder was quite mysterious. Yaan was quite familiar with the ghoul, vampiric and fiend races by now, and this demonic race Elder didn't seem to belong to one of these three. Well, everyone had their secrets, and the longer a cultivator lived, the more secrets they would accumulate.
As for the City Lord, Yaan had no reason to trust that person…they had a relationship of mutual benefits at this point, so they were able to get along well and politely. However, Yaan didn't doubt that the old demon would kill him in a heart beat if there was reason enough to do so. Luckily, the Grand Elder had sworn in the poison oath that he would neither harm Yaan, nor send others to harm him.
Time passed by and the crowd seemed to have reached its peak. There were just ten minutes remaining until the opening. This opening occurred on the same day, at the same time, every decade without fail. Nobody would arrive late.
There were certainly thousands of people here, possibly some people that Yaan knew from the Northern mountain range. However, not only was he stood in the middle of the Ghu Clan group and hidden from view, but he was also wearing the improved bamboo hat that hid his appearance and distorted his aura. This slight distortion wasn't even noticeable, but it was still enough to make him feel unfamiliar to people he had met in the past. Wearing such an appearance disguising treasure was nothing unusual really, and it looked ordinary at a glance.
Yaan knew that there should be some individuals from the Northern factions present. However, they were currently even more wary of the Ghu Clan than usual, opting to keep their distance. The destruction of the Yuso Clan was no small matter, and now, with the Ghu Clan reinforcements arriving at their new territory, they had joined together with the other eight Northern factions in order to finally defeat the beast tide.
Meaning, those eight factions were currently busy, so they didn't send nearly as many participants to enter the inheritance as they were planning previously. The young geniuses from the Northern border were some of the top competition that the Ghu Clan youngsters faced in the inheritance. With them now sitting back this time around, the pressure the Ghu Clan felt from other factions was reduced by more than half.
And since Yaan was allying himself with the Ghu Clan group for this endeavour, he was naturally pleased about this. He had hoped that things would turn out this way, giving him less competition in the inheritance, but it worked out even better than he anticipated! Perhaps he had overestimated the value most factions placed on the inheritance. It opened every ten years anyway and nobody had even returned from the 4th stage since its appearance 1,800 years ago, so missing one opening wasn't a big deal to them.
For a few minutes, the crowd became deathly silent. Some of the Elders wore serious gazes as they stared towards a certain location, an opening within the Ghu Clan crowd measuring around 100 feet across. This entire area was barren of all grass, instead covered only by an unknown smooth black material.
VRRMMM…
A buzzing sound rang out, then without any further warning, the entrance to the inheritance was now there, before the stunned crowd! Its arrival wasn't flashy, but nobody present was able to take their eyes away from the tattered stone archway. This archway emitted an ancient aura, an aura that reflected the passage of time, as if it had existed through countless generations and could only be eroded by the exceedingly long periods of time.
The stone arch was similar in size to a cathedral doorway, slightly over 10 feet wide and 2 to 3 feet taller than this. There were no doors within the arch, only a red membrane. Whilst at a glance the membrane appeared to be transparent, nothing could actually be seen past the initial surface.
Nobody could see anything on or past the membrane…nobody except for Yaan. As soon as the stone arch mysteriously appeared, Yaan could already see something that nobody else present was able to see. A green chain extended out from the membrane within the arch, stretching through the crowd with its illusory form, all the way up to Yaan's body. Yaan was stunned for a moment, dragging his gaze downwards, along the chain, until his sight reached his body. For a brief moment, he felt a sense of alarm, because the illusory green chain was wrapped around his entire body!
However, in his shock, Yaan blinked. He rubbed his eyes and looked around hastily, feeling stunned to see that the chain had vanished into thin air. More strangely, nobody else seemed to have even noticed it! Yaan looked around some more, but he could find no traces of the chain. In the end, he sighed, shaking his head and turning back towards the stone arch.
'Was it an illusion…? So strange…'
The aura released by the membrane startled all those who were experiencing this for the first time. The Elders who were familiar with the gate remained calm, but they quickly began using spells, trying to analyse this gate without wasting any time.
Not only was the inheritance a chance to earn great fortune and temper the younger generation, but the gate itself was an opportunity for the Elders to study a mysterious and powerful construct carefully! The gate would only remain for three days, they didn't want to waste a single second of this opportunity that only came around once every ten years!
"Lets go. Elder Jishi, we will return triumphant." A youngish looking man turned towards Nadda's great grandfather and clasped his hands. Following his confident words, he calmly walked directly into the gate without so much as waiting for a response. He carried with him an air of calm confidence, whilst his expression and inner thoughts were impossible to see through.
This person was Ghu Lin, the designated leader of the entire Ghu Clan exploration party this time. He had entered this place once ten years earlier, but he was only a recently advanced 1st Layer Qi Temple realm clansmen at that time, extremely ordinary.
But now, after supposedly finding a certain item that somehow improved his talent itself, he attained the 6th layer in just ten years, becoming the strongest Ghu Clansman to enter this time!
Anyone who could reach the 6th layer would be respected by their peers and valued by their faction, no matter how long they took to reach this point. It was already considered good to reach the 4th layer before attempting the realm ascension, the 5th layer was quite rare and very excellent, whilst people who reached the 6th layer only appeared once or twice per generation, even in the Ghu Clan!
As for the 7th layer, such a level could only be reached with a mixture of talent, hard work, lucky encounters, rare resources, and obsession. Such individuals couldn't be nourished, only appearing by chance extremely rarely. As for the 8th and 9th layers…no such genius had ever appeared in the Ghu Province or even the surrounding few lands, or at least nobody had been recorded in the history books to have obtained such an incredible foundation.
The hundreds of Ghu Clansmen silently followed after Ghu Lin. None of the other factions showed any discontent to their entry being before everyone else, it had always been like this, and nobody dared to dispute it.
The Ghu Clan was a demonic clan, they didn't care if others thought they were too overbearing, or if people said they were bullying the weak. The Ghu Clan was the most powerful faction in the province without any doubt, and they had a history of destroying any who openly opposed them without a shred of mercy or hesitation.
If an Elder from a smaller faction were to express their discontent right now, there was a serious possibility that their entire faction would be annihilated within one week. It wouldn't be the first instance of this happening, though it had been a while since the Ghu Clan acted so overbearingly…until the recent event with the Yuso Clan.
The City Lord was entirely willing to destroy the Yuso Clan for this reason. Besides the obvious, obtaining the spirit heart, the near instant destruction of the Yuso Clan reminded the province of the Ghu Clan's power and merciless nature.
And so, the Ghu Clansmen, their guests and also the thousands of 'affiliates', entered before anyone else. Some people threw looks of pity towards the ignorant and excited looking 'affiliates'. They were not heading in to anything pleasant, they never were.
Soon enough, all of the pawns had entered. It wasn't long before Yaan followed the Ghu Clansmen into the unknown depths beyond the ancient archway entrance. Like that, Yaan disappeared from these grassy plains. After a few more minutes, everyone who was entering the inheritance this time had already made their way within. A maximum of 10,000 people could enter with each opening, and after the last person passed through, the membrane turned from red to grey.
However, the moment the last person walked through the stone archway, a shocking phenomena struck the sky directly above, a phenomena that had never before appeared alongside the opening of the inheritance.
A horrendous screeching noise reverberated through the lands as a giant black tear in space split open the sky itself! The crack rapidly expanded, exerting a two way force on the lands and the shocked cultivators below. In an instant, hundreds of Qi masters had their bodies torn apart by the extreme force! Some were blown back, their dismembered limbs scattering far away from this region. Others were torn limb from limb as they were dragged up from the ground, helplessly thrown into the black crack.
Just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished. The casualties were horrifying, the scene below was like nothing that anyone could have anticipated merely seconds earlier. Everyone who survived this unexpected crisis turned to one another in shock and fear, struggling to comprehend what exactly had just happened.
No matter how much they investigated over the coming days, nobody would find any traces of a clue.
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