Chapter 212: Meeting of the Three Saint Teachers

"Nether Soul Spirit Mushroom?"

Jiuyou stepped onto the altar, his gaze falling on the two stalks of Spirit Velvet at its center.

His tone carried a hint of suspicion. "Just left out in the open like this, for me to take so easily?"

He remained where he was, his eyes lingering on the two stalks of Spirit Velvet for a moment before sweeping the surroundings. Soundlessly, his Divine Sense probed downward along the altar's base.

Sure enough, a Soul Gathering Array lay buried beneath it. However, the traces of its operation had been severed for some time, and its spiritual energy was mostly depleted. It clearly hadn't been activated recently.

But Jiuyou did not stop there. He connected with the Heaven and Earth Ring. A faint light flashed across the ring, and the feedback it provided made him narrow his eyes. Hidden under the cover of the Soul Gathering Array was an offensive restriction. The moment he touched the Spirit Velvet, that restriction would trigger instantly.

However, the Heaven and Earth Ring's perception was incredibly precise. In mere moments, it fed the exact location of the array core into his sea of consciousness.

With a single thought from Jiuyou, a burst of sword qi erupted silently at the array core. The offensive array was utterly uprooted, shattering into a scattering of broken runes.

Jiuyou reached out and picked up the shattered array disk, weighing it casually in his hand before tossing it aside. The array's grade wasn't high, barely different from the ones he had encountered along the way. It held no real value to him, and it certainly wasn't worth the effort to repair.

He stowed away the Soul Gathering Array from beneath the altar, then finally turned his gaze back to the two stalks of Nether Soul Spirit Mushroom. One was roughly eight hundred years old, while the other was barely two thousand one hundred years old. Their soul power was entirely too thin to serve as a primary ingredient, falling far short of the ten-thousand-year stalk in his possession.

The older the plant, the more massive the soul power required to nurture it.

And the soul power his Nether Capital Gate had accumulated over the better part of a lifetime was only enough to cultivate two qualified stalks of Spirit Velvet. For the remaining stalk, he was still short by exactly half the required amount. But being just this one final stalk away, how could he willingly accept falling short of success by failing to dump the last basket of earth?

Soul power.

He needed a sea of it. And to obtain that much soul power, he needed a massive harvest of living souls. To get that many living souls, he needed a war.

But the Northern Plains and Ganzhou had ceased their conflict decades ago. Both sides were currently resting and recovering their strength. Where would a war come from now?

Jiuyou stood before the dim altar, his gaze resting on the still-immature Spirit Velvet. It suddenly occurred to him that stepping in to save someone earlier might not have been the wisest move.

Graceful was this generation's Saintess of the Northern Plains. If she had been killed by the Blood Abyss Sect, the Northern Plains would have undoubtedly launched a massive counteroffensive. Once war broke out, he could sit back and reap the spoils. Now that he had saved her, he had snuffed out that spark of war right along with her.

He couldn't possibly slaughter everyone himself. How long would that take?

Even if he now possessed a Heaven-grade Spiritual Treasure and considered himself unrivaled beneath the Deity Transformation realm, drawing the combined siege of cultivators from both sides would never be a wise move.

He stood by the altar for a moment, as if waiting for a certain thought to surface. Taking one last look at the area to confirm he hadn't missed anything, he turned and left.

Hovering in the air, Jiuyou swept his gaze across the ruins of the ancient battlefield before finally locking onto the depths of the Northern Plains. There was little emotion in his eyes, as if he were simply viewing a completed painting.

He was indeed somewhat different from the man he used to be—the one who slaughtered without restraint—but he knew very well that he had never truly changed. No matter the means, as long as he achieved his goal, he couldn't be wrong. A bold plan gradually took shape in his mind.

...

Several months later.

"Disaster, Saint Teacher Mo! Grandmaster Xun of the Heavenly Fire Tribe has been assassinated right inside his own tribe."

Inside a palace built from white animal bones and pristine stone bricks, a Golden Core Cultivator knelt on one knee, reporting to the green-robed elder seated above, the man known as Saint Teacher Mo.

Saint Teacher Mo held a scroll in his hand, his desk piled high with even more books and records. He exuded a sense of leisure that seemed rather out of place for a cultivator. Slowly setting the scroll down, he looked up at the Golden Core Cultivator. His gaze wasn't harsh, but it wasn't dismissive either.

"Another one dead," Saint Teacher Mo said. "This makes three this month, and last month was exactly the same. Whenever one of our Nascent Soul grandmasters is left isolated, they are murdered. Just who is behind this?"

Before he even finished speaking, a gruff voice boomed from outside the hall. "Who else could it be? It has to be Ganzhou! Only they would resort to such shadowy schemes. If you ask me, they're the ones who extracted the souls and refined the spirits of the warriors on the battlefield, too. Refining the souls of even their own people—they're completely deranged."

Along with the voice, a figure strode into the hall. He had red robes, red hair, and sharp, chiseled features. His vitality surged around him as thick and powerful as a dragon, and every step he took carried a heavy, oppressive weight. He was unmistakably a physical cultivator at the Nascent Soul Late Stage.

Right behind him, a golden streak of Escape Light touched down. The phantom image of a Golden-Copper Heavy Hammer smashed heavily into the floor of the hall before dissipating, revealing the figure of Gu Daobian. As soon as he walked in, he shot a glance at the burly red-haired man, then cupped his fist toward Saint Teacher Mo.

"Saint Teacher Mo, it's been a while," he said.

Saint Teacher Mo stood and returned the gesture. "Saint Teacher Gu, Saint Teacher Ma. Please, have a seat."

Once the two men sat down, he got straight to the point. "I assume you both came because of the recent assassinations of our Northern Plains' Nascent Soul grandmasters."

"Exactly." Saint Teacher Ma slapped his thigh, his voice brimming with uncontainable fury. "Both sides called a truce, and the Northern Plains finally had a moment of peace, only for this mess to happen. And my niece... May I ask if you have found her remains, Saint Teacher Mo? If you do, please send her back to our Ancient Rock Tribe. I would be forever grateful."

Saint Teacher Mo shook his head. "We haven't found her yet. Every time one of these incidents occurs, we immediately send people to investigate. But at the locations where those Nascent Soul grandmasters were last seen, we can't find even the slightest turbulence in spiritual energy from a battle. There are absolutely no traces left behind, as if nothing ever happened."

"A battle between Nascent Soul masters, and it didn't even leave a ripple of spiritual energy behind?" Saint Teacher Ma asked, his face full of shock.

"This killer must be strong enough to slay cultivators of the same realm in a single strike. How else could there be no residual shockwaves?" Gu Daobian chimed in. "Or, perhaps he holds some kind of magic treasure that can easily smooth out the turbulent spiritual energy. To be able to manipulate the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to such a degree... what grade of treasure could that possibly be?"

He paused for a moment, lowering his voice. "Speaking of which, there is another reason I came here today. When the Saintess was in danger a few days ago, she encountered a cultivator from Ganzhou. Not only did this man have some past connection with the Saintess, but he was also a Peak Nascent Soul Stage sword cultivator. This person is incredibly powerful..."

As his voice trailed off, the gazes of the other two men in the hall fell upon him simultaneously.

Saint Teacher Mo set his scroll back on the desk, his fingers resting gently on the edge of the pages. Saint Teacher Ma's explosive temper receded, looking as though he had finally heard something truly worth his attention.

The grand hall fell completely silent for a moment.