Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 159: A Shadow Scam

Xu Qing didn’t need to issue any more threats. His shadow immediately shivered in response to his words. In fact, in its terror, it seemed to react instinctively by ripping itself apart in several places. Then it seemed to exert its consciousness anxiously to send a message to Xu Qing.

“Seazombie… eat… quick breakthrough… breakthrough quick….”

Xu Qing didn’t bother to wonder what the difference was between ‘quick breakthrough’ and ‘breakthrough quick.’ Nor did he care whether or not the shadow was being sincere. Instead, he shifted his attention to the iron skewer.

The skewer trembled as Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior appeared on its surface. He had obviously prepared himself mentally over the past few moments.

As soon as he appeared, he slapped his chest and confidently said, “Don’t worry, milord! All I need to do is consume a few more magical devices and I can achieve a breakthrough with my spirit automaton techniques. Based on your humble servant’s calculations, once that happens, then under my control, our dear little skewer will be able to achieve a speed and sharpness comparable to the profound radiance state.

“Although it won’t be able to stay in that state long, milord, I’ll work very hard not to hold you back. Incidentally, your humble servant has been looking into self-detonation methods.

“I’ve already thought it through. What worries you, milord, worries me. What concerns you, milord, concerns me. My life isn’t worth anything, so if a true moment of deadly crisis arrives, then your humble servant won’t hesitate to self-detonate to make sure you have a chance to escape. Milord, all of this is to make sure you can follow the path of the Ancient Emperors and Imperial Sovereigns!”

The patriarch spoke with great passion, and repeatedly thumped his chest to emphasize his words. Off to the side, the shadow trembled in amazement. Afterward, Xu Qing looked deeply at the patriarch, then nodded.

“I understand.” Looking away, he exercised a thought, and the life flame within him winked out. As it did, Xu Qing returned to his previous state, and no longer shone brightly. The terrifying pressure that he had exuded vanished.

The moment he left the profound radiance state, he felt a temporary uncomfortable sensation. In fact, he briefly felt the urge to go back into the profound radiance state. He suppressed the urge.

It was a normal sensation for any Foundation Establishment cultivator who left the profound radiance state. That state involved explosively releasing everything from one’s dharma apertures. It caused dharma apertures and spirit seas alike to surge, and also boosted the dharma body. As could be imagined, it was extremely draining.

As a result, Foundation Establishment cultivators had to exercise restraint, and know how long they could stay in that state. For most single-flame cultivators, they could last for an hour or perhaps a bit longer.

Because of that limited time, most people wouldn’t use the profound radiance state unless they absolutely had to. And that was because the state tapped into the life flame. If the life flame ran out, then the dharma apertures in one’s body would rapidly wither up. And withered apertures would leave one irreversibly crippled.

After getting used to being out of the profound radiance state, Xu Qing checked his battle trophies.

He had just killed four Seazombie Foundation Establishment cultivators, and the most disappointing thing about it was that the one who had teleported in wasted four magical devices defending himself.

Because it happened when Xu Qing had just entered the profound radiance state, and also had his life lamp active, he had been unable to exert refined control, and had only been able to attack with full force. And sadly, crushing his opponent had also involved crushing those magical devices.

They were probably worth more than a million spirit stones!!

Thinking about that, he sighed, then took out the bags of holding he’d taken.

These bags were better than any of the ones he’d taken up to this point. In total, they contained about 300,000 spirit stones. Sadly, he only found a single magical device. It was the fan belonging to the Seazombie scholar, which was a speed-boosting item. Xu Qing looked at Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior, who was obviously antsy to devour it. He tossed it over.

The iron skewer thrummed as it stabbed into the fan in a very crafty way, into the frame of the fan from underneath, in a way that the damage wouldn’t be easy to spot.

As the fan’s spirit resonance was sucked away, it grew a bit dimmer. When the patriarch was satisfied, he pulled the skewer out of the fan, then turned back and exhaled onto the fan. That exhalation had a marvelous effect; when it landed on the fan, it went from being dim to glowing brightly. It looked exactly the same as before!

“It’s just a bit more fragile, that’s all!” the patriarch said, blinking a few times. He looked a bit apologetic, as if he was intentionally trying to seem like he wasn’t a shady character. Xu Qing’s facial expression was the same as ever as he took the fan back. Ignoring the patriarch’s facial expression and words, he unleashed the power of the two Seazombie souls within him to open his 31st dharma aperture.

I need more souls!

Now that he had passed 30 dharma apertures, he could tell that the soul power wasn’t as effective. An ordinary Foundation Establishment soul wasn’t enough to open a dharma aperture. He needed souls from cultivators with life flames. Though he had opened the 31st aperture, he could now see that he would need more souls to open the 32nd.

As his dharma force built back up, Xu Qing burst into motion, heading toward the exit of the underwater world. He soon found it and went right in without slowing down. Before long, he was back on the surface. As soon as he was there, he saw numerous Seven Blood Eyes cultivators flying overhead. The atmosphere of war was even stronger than before. As rumbling echoed in the distance, shocking fluctuations rolled through the sky. Xu Qing’s expression turned somber as he looked up. High in the sky, he saw more than ten high-ranking members of Seven Blood Eyes fighting with a group of Seazombies. Further away over the water there was even fiercer fighting going on between the two sides.

Meanwhile, row after row of magical devices on the four islands sent out powerful magical techniques, creating a multi-colored glow which rose high into the sky. Flying swords shot out of the sword lake and screamed through the air. The spell formations were also working like mad.

Apparently, the war had reached a critical point, and the Seazombies were counter-attacking in a ferocious manner.

Xu Qing sent some dharma force into his identity medallion to check the missions, and saw that most of them were for the front-line battle. The rewards were spectacular. And there were already seven or eight people creeping close to completing the mission to kill 10,000 enemies and get a destined opportunity for core formation. While he was paying attention to his identity medallion, he turned in the completed teleportation formation mission. However, he didn’t immediately pick a new mission.

Right now, the most important thing as far as he was concerned was to explain how he had the power of two life flames within him, despite only having a single life flame.

The obvious way to avoid revealing that fact would be to figure out a way to stay away from Seven Blood Eyes disciples. Otherwise, if he got into a fight in the presence of others, he would have to reveal the truth, and might end up in a deadly crisis as a result. But that would be difficult long-term. So the alternative was to come up with a plan to explain his unusual strength.

The best explanation he could think of would be to say that he had devoured a lot of souls in battle. That seemed like the least risky cover story.

Looking at his kill count on his identity medallion, he saw that he had killed fifteen Foundation Establishment Seazombies, but none in the Qi Condensation level.

That’s not enough. If someone investigated him, and saw such a low kill count, they would immediately become suspicious. Therefore, Xu Qing found a remote area, checked to make sure he was alone, then looked down at his shadow. 𝑜𝘷𝑙.𝘰𝑟𝑔

“You emitted a Seazombie aura earlier, right? Do it again.”

The shadow seemed confused, and even formed itself into a question mark on the ground in front of him.

“Just do what you’re told!” barked Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior.

Looking somewhat hurt, the shadow released a small Seazombie aura. However, the moment it happened, the violet crystal in Xu Qing immediately suppressed it out of existence. As the shadow looked terrified and bewildered, Xu Qing checked his identity medallion and found that his count for Qi Condensation kills had risen from 0 to 1. Xu Qing’s eyes lit up.

So, I was right.

When he had seen that Seazombie aura coming from the shadow earlier, he had wondered how the identity medallion would keep track of the kills. Seeing the result of his experiment, he was very pleased.

The identity medallion wasn’t alive, and thus had no sense of judgment. All it did was take note when various auras and fluctuations collapsed, and used that as the basis to determine the kill count. Normally speaking, it wouldn’t be easy to cheat the medallion. As for what would happen when multiple people attacked a single target, there was a function in place to calculate the results. It wasn’t perfect, but was good enough in most cases. But Xu Qing’s bizarre shadow was different.

This was the method he planned to use to deal with the situation. He would accept a mission, and use it to actually refine souls to open apertures, but at the same time, use his shadow to bolster his kill count for both Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment enemies. Then it would be more believable that he would have the battle prowess of two life flames. That was especially true during wartime, when so many enemies were present. As long as he didn’t do anything too outrageous, it wouldn’t seem suspicious. The main thing to consider was how many times the shadow could be suppressed.

After a bit of consideration, Xu Qing decided it wasn’t worth worrying about. After all, he had suppressed the shadow numerous times without it dying, so he doubted a few more times would hurt much.

And thus, for the next two months, Xu Qing accepted missions like mad. For most missions, he only used the power of a single life flame, and would only use his life lamp when he was alone.

And of course, just to make sure there weren’t problems because of his identity medallion noticing the power of two life flames, he had his shadow conceal the presence of the lamp at all times.

All of the missions required high kill counts. And of course, Xu Qing would occasionally require his shadow to release Seazombie auras in the Foundation Establishment level. However, it could not attain that same level of battle prowess.

Apparently, the shadow had limits. Regardless, Xu Qing’s kill count of Foundation Establishment Seazombies increased.

His shadow was in a miserable state, and that caused Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior to shiver in terror. Although the current situation had nothing to do with him, he still couldn’t stop worrying about his own survival. That was more true than ever on a few occasions when it seemed like the shadow was really about to collapse. Through the two months, Xu Qing also got many legitimate kills. Because of that, the shadow got a chance to bolster itself some, and its battle prowess was slowly returning to normal. That was quite a shock to Xu Qing. Meanwhile, Xu Qing reached the point of opening 40 dharma apertures.

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