Chapter 477.2: The Sages Grand Ambition (2)

Chapter 477.2: The Sage's Grand Ambition (2)

At dusk, the two of them came down from the mountain. Li Banfeng asked Cedric, "How confident are you?"

Cedric smiled. "Against this kind of unusual lifeform, I wouldn't dare say I am confident. I can only do my best. Wiping out everyone from the same Daoist path is a Disease Cultivator tradition, and it's also what I personally want."

That night, Cedric spent the entire night preparing a pot of concoction. Strictly speaking, it was not a concoction, but a pathogen. Cedric was very confident in the pathogen he had created.

After getting two hours of sleep before they set out, Cedric followed Li Banfeng back up Ghostblade Ridge.

They went back to the same open area as before. Cedric poured the concoction into a washbasin and set six pictures around it.

Each picture was made up of dense, fine lines. Li Banfeng did not look closely at the patterns. In fact, he did not even want to give the pictures a second glance. He was starting to understand the way Cedric thought. Some of the visual recognition patterns were indeed a kind of disease.

Once everything was ready, Cedric gave Li Banfeng a simple explanation. "These six pictures create a layout with a three-dimensional perspective. To the Toilblade Ghosts, it's like seeing spring water bubbling up from the ground. They will mistake the pathogen I made for spring water and drink it."

"And they will die if they drink it?"

Cedric shook his head. "A pathogen that kills too quickly isn't suitable for spreading a plague. If a Toilblade Ghost drinks the concoction and dies within an hour, it will have a hard time passing the pathogen on to the next target. Even if it does manage to spread it, the chain of transmission could easily be broken. The infected Toilblade Ghost needs to stay alive for a while, long enough to spread the plague."

Li Banfeng said, "If it doesn't rain, the Toilblade Ghosts stay underground asleep and don't come into contact with each other. In other words, for your plan to work, it has to rain before the infected Toilblade Ghost dies."

Cedric shook his head. "I never leave things to luck. I have made more thorough preparations."

He made a bubbling sound toward the morning glory on the ground.

"Grrrrrglglgl..."

The soil loosened, and the female Toilblade Ghost they had awakened yesterday crawled out of the ground. She came over to the washbasin and crawled once around it on her fleshy, stump-like limbs.

"Uuuh..."

The Toilblade Ghost let out a different cry than before. Cedric lowered his voice. "Did you hear that? She's happy. She's found a source of water! I have successfully changed her perception and recognition. I have made her understand that rainwater isn't the only source of water she can find."

The Toilblade Ghost lay on the ground and took a big gulp. Li Banfeng said, "You don't have much of that stuff. Careful she doesn't finish it all by herself."

"She won't!" Cedric sounded quite confident. "There's a special ingredient in the medicine that quickly suppresses thirst and creates a powerful sense of fullness. See? She's already stopped drinking."

After just one sip, the ToilbladeGhost was full.

Cedric smiled. "She wants to contact others of her kind now. The medicine gives her a strong urge to communicate with them. That's the key."

The Toilblade Ghost crouched on the ground and let out a series of howls. "Uuuh! Uuuh!"

Before long, rustling came from the bushes all around them. More Toilblade Ghosts were closing in. Li Banfeng warned him, "Shouldn't we get out of here?"

"There's no rush," Cedric said. "I still need a little more time to observe them. I can't determine the infection rate yet. We only have a limited amount of the medicine, so there won't be many first-generation infected. After that, we will have to rely on them infecting one another."

More than a dozen Toilblade Ghosts came bursting out of the bushes and crowded around the basin, finishing up the medicine very quickly. Then they hunkered down and began howling together. Their cries carried through the woods, drawing more and more of their kind. Before long, over a hundred Toilblade Ghosts had gathered around them.

Li Banfeng tried again. "We should get out of here."

There were far too many of them. If every Toilblade Ghost released even a single breath of black mist, Li Banfeng would be dead.

Cedric, however, remained perfectly calm. "Don't worry. Let's wait a little longer. Once they have taken the medicine, they shouldn't pay much attention to us. Right now, all they will want is to communicate with each other. And since they are dealing with their own kind, they probably won't use their poisonous mist."

"Then what are they going to do?"

"If I had to guess, they would start arguing, because every one of them wants to know what happened to the water."

Cedric had called it exactly right. The Toilblade Ghosts kept snarling at one another, and before long, an argument broke out.

"They will start fighting too. They have this huge desire for water, so the ones who didn't get any should be getting angry by now."

Cedric had guessed right again. Some of the Toilblade Ghosts had already started brawling. This was exactly the chain of infection that Cedric had planned.

"And they will even..." Cedric froze.

A male and female Toilblade Ghost had wrapped themselves around each other. Initially, Cedric thought they were grappling, but he soon realized that part of their bodies had actually joined together.

"I didn't expect this. Their entire form of life has changed so drastically, and yet they have still retained this instinct."

Before long, Toilblade Ghosts all around them began pairing off and embracing one another. Their delighted howls rose and fell through the woods.

Cedric pursed his lips. "Li Qi, I think I might have put too much of one of the ingredients into the medicine. They are far too excited now. We should probably leave. Li Qi? Li Qi..."

Cedric turned to his side and saw that Li Qi was no longer by his side.

Indeed, Li Banfeng had left. In fact, he had been gone for a while.

The Toilblade Ghost that had been awakened by the morning glory crept over to Cedric. Staying low to the ground, she circled him slowly.

Cedric could tell she was hostile. The Toilblade Ghost had sensed that there was something different about him.

She opened her mouth. She might have been about to spit poison, or she might have been preparing to howl.

If she only spat poison at him, Cedric could probably manage. But if she called the others over and they all sprayed poison at him together, it would be fatal. There was no way Cedric could control such a vast number of pathogens in such a short time.

At this critical moment, Cedric eased his suppression of the pathogens inside his body. His face rapidly swelled until his features blurred, and his entire body became covered in thick, viscous fluid.

When the Toilblade Ghost saw Cedric in such a state, she gradually stopped showing hostility. Still, she did not leave. She went behind Cedric and gradually wrapped her arms around him.

Cedric had a lot he wanted to say, but at this moment, he had no idea what language to use.

***

The next morning, Cedric came down from the mountain and glared angrily at Li Banfeng. "You left me up there all by myself. That seriously hurt our friendship."

Li Banfeng asked him a serious question. "How did you get away?"

Cedric did not answer him directly. "I saved your life, and this is how you repay me?"

"Repaying a favor and staying behind to get myself killed with you are two different things."

"How was that getting yourself killed? We were working together to stop a disaster!"

"Did we stop it?"

Cedric fell silent for a moment. "There were a few twists and turns along the way. I didn't expect the Toilblade Ghosts to be so resilient. The pathogen I created couldn't kill them, but we did achieve some results."

"What results?"

Cedric explained, "In the past, whenever there was thunder and lightning, the Toilblade Ghosts would appear because they needed to drink water. But now, under the effects of the pathogen, their physical characteristics have changed to some extent. They can use their vision to actively search for water sources. This means that from now on, whenever there's a thunderstorm, we won't have to worry about being ambushed by Toilblade Ghosts. Thunder and lightning are no longer necessarily connected to their behavior."

Li Banfeng's head buzzed. He lowered his voice and asked, "Can't you be more straightforward with what you want to say?"

Cedric thought for a moment. "It means they can come out now even without thunder."

A cold wind blew past. Li Banfeng looked up at Cedric. "I should have killed you before I went up that mountain."

Cedric sighed. "There's no need to be so pessimistic. I will make some further improvements to the pathogens. Next time, I promise the results will be better."

"When will next time be?"

Cedric thought for a long while, then looked toward Ghostblade Ridge. "That doesn't depend on me. It depends on them. The pathogen has made them a little excited. After all, being able to find water on their own is something worth getting excited about. Given their current state, I don't know when they will calm down. Maybe they never will."

Li Banfeng looked toward Ghostblade Ridge and, for a moment, did not know what to say.

Cedric went back to his camp, while Li Banfeng prepared to head back to the Pocket Dwelling. He was halfway back home when a man in a gray trench coat stepped into his path.

Chu Shaoqiang walked up to Li Banfeng with a smile. "I don't like assuming the worst of people, but there's one thing I really can't figure out. Why is it that every rotten thing I have run into lately somehow involves you?"

Li Banfeng asked, "You are here because of Ghostblade Ridge?"

"Yes." Chu Shaoqiang did not deny it.

"Was it you who sent Ghostblade Ridge here?"

"Not exactly," Chu Shaoqiang said as he shook his head. "While I was transporting Ghostblade Ridge here, the Heavenheart Stones I was using to guide the way disappeared. There was a total of five. You might know where they went."

Li Banfeng did not answer. Instead, he asked, "Where were you trying to send Ghostblade Ridge?"

"I can't tell you that."

"If you want my help, you have to tell me the truth."

Chu Shaoqiang hesitated for a moment. "It was the Peddler's order. He told me to move Ghostblade Ridge somewhere else. As for the exact reason, I don't know either..."

Halfway through his sentence, Chu Shaoqiang found himself unable to continue. He was blowing soap bubbles that smelled of roses.

There was one thing he had never been able to figure out. Back on Sage's Peak, he had told the Sage plenty of lies. He had also lied repeatedly when people from the Inner Provinces came to question him. Yet nothing unusual had ever happened on those occasions.

It only happened when he was seeing the Peddler and Li Qi. Whenever he tried to lie in front of them, he would start blowing soap bubbles. He had no idea when the soap that the Peddler had fed him would be fully digested.

Seeing the soap bubbles, Li Banfeng naturally wouldn't believe a single word he said. Chu Shaoqiang tried again, this time coming up with a more tactful explanation.

"This actually has nothing to do with the Peddler. The reason I'm doing this is because Pulu... lulu... Luo Province..."

The moment he tried to say "Pu," a string of soap bubbles spilled from his mouth, making him choke and cough.

Li Banfeng was so disappointed in Chu Shaoqiang. "At least come up with a decent excuse."

Chu Shaoqiang wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and said, "Forget it. I will tell you the truth. I need to send Ghostblade Ridge to Sage's Peak. The Sage wants it."

"Why does he want the Ghostblade Ridge?"

"He wants an army so he can reclaim the position he once held."

"What position was that?"

"He was the last emperor of the previous dynasty. After losing the war, he lost his empire. His former empire was divided into two. One part came under the control of the imperial family and became what is now the Inner Provinces. The other part became present-day Puluo Province."

This time, Chu Shaoqiang did not blow any soap bubbles. He was telling the truth. However, Li Banfeng could not make sense of his explanation.

Li Banfeng asked, "If the Inner Provinces are controlled by the imperial family, why doesn't the Sage go back to the Inner Provinces? Isn't he the emperor?"

Chu Shaoqiang said, "I don't know much about his past. He did live in the Inner Provinces for some time, but he eventually left because he could no longer tolerate the imperial family's oppression. After that, he took control of Sage's Peak and eventually the whole of Vilefolk Hillock."

"The imperial family oppressed the emperor?" Li Banfeng was even more confused.

"The imperial family has already fallen completely under the control of the people of the Inner Provinces. As for where those people came from, I can't really explain it. All I know is that they originally didn't belong to this world."

Li Banfeng finally managed to piece together the logic. "So the Sage wants to turn the Toilblade Ghosts on Ghostblade Ridge into his army and use them to conquer Puluo Province?"

Chu Shaoqiang nodded.

"You were sent here by the Inner Provinces. Why are you following the Sage's orders?"

Chu Shaoqiang said, "Actually, this was also an order from the Inner Provi... lululu..."

Soap bubbles sprayed from his mouth again. Chu Shaoqiang had lied once more.

Li Banfeng shook his head. "This wasn't an order from the Inner Provinces. This was a deal between you and the Sage."

Chu Shaoqiang nodded. "Yes. Ge Junma is dead, and he was from the Inner Provinces. The consequences of his death were not something I could bear. If I want to stay alive, I need someone to take responsibility for what happened. The Sage agreed to take the blame for me. In return, I have to send Ghostblade Ridge to Virtuous Adept Peak."

"The Toilblade Ghosts' minds are completely different from those of humans. How does the Sage plan to control them?"

"The Sage has a way to control thunderstorms within a certain area. That is the foundation for for controlling when the Toilblade Ghosts advance and retreat.."

Li Banfeng frowned. "That's it? He thinks he can control the Toilblade Ghosts with thunderstorms alone?"

Chu Shaoqiang said, "I told the Sage that this was still a long way from having a real army. But he believes that as long as he can control the thunderstorms, he already has the foundation needed to tame the Toilblade Ghosts. He sees this as the beginning of his grand ambitions."

Li Banfeng pressed his lips together as his nose kept twitching.

Chu Shaoqiang said, "I know the Sage's idea is somewhat unrealistic, and his chances of actually controlling the Toilblade Ghosts aren't very high. That's why I agreed to hand Ghostblade Ridge over to him. However, I lost the Heavenheart Stones here and you happened to be here as well. If you told me you had absolutely nothing to do with this, I wouldn't believe you. Still, if you are willing to help me find the Heavenheart Stones, I will pay you a handsome reward."

Li Banfeng thought for a long while. "I suppose I could help you, but you lost five Heavenheart Stones. Finding all of them would be too difficult."

Chu Shaoqiang said, "I need at least two of them. Otherwise, Ghostblade Ridge can't be moved."

Li Banfeng responded, "Finding two might be possible. But that depends on how much you are willing to pay."

Author's Note:

PS: What exactly did Cedric experience that night?