After settling things with Le Zheng'en, Di Tian placed a call to the commander of the Northern Army Group.
"This is Guo Zhenfeng. May I ask why Lord Yun Tian is calling…?" came the inquiring voice from the other end of the line.
"I'd like to make a deal with General Guo," Di Tian said straight to the point, bringing up the matter of the Hundred-Year Life-Extending Pill.
After hearing him out, Guo Zhenfeng jumped to his feet in excitement, even kicking over his chair.
"Lord Yun Tian, is what you're saying true?" Guo Zhenfeng asked to confirm, his mouth dry with excitement.
"Naturally. As long as General Guo is willing to stand up in support of Dragon Phoenix Hall in his capacity as the commander of the Northern Army Group, the pill can be sold to you," Di Tian replied.
Guo Zhenfeng felt the price was still acceptable, though he also wanted to bargain a little to lower it as much as possible.
In response, Di Tian repeated exactly what he had told Le Zheng'en, successfully bluffing Guo Zhenfeng into believing this was already the most favorable price possible.
"Then it's settled—this Hundred-Year Life-Extending Pill must be reserved for me," Guo Zhenfeng said.
His family's financial strength was decent, but not enough to purchase multiple Hundred-Year Life-Extending Pills. He could only afford one.
Di Tian understood Guo Zhenfeng's situation well. The Northern Army Group he commanded was the weakest among the Federation's eight major army groups.
Stationed in the extreme northern regions, where the climate was freezing cold and resources were scarce, they received relatively little support from the Federation.
As the army group's commander, Guo Zhenfeng often used his own family's resources to subsidize the army. Being able to buy even one pill was already his limit.
After building a good relationship with Guo Zhenfeng this time, I can consider sponsoring the Northern Army Group, Di Tian thought to himself.
Among the Federation's eight army groups, the poorest—namely, the Northern Army Group—was the easiest to sponsor, because they needed money the most.
After finalizing things with Guo Zhenfeng, Di Tian contacted Xu Long of the Northern Sea Army Group and Dong Zi'an of the Western Army Group.
Things went fairly smoothly as well. He successfully reached agreements with them, and they all expressed their willingness to stand up in support of Dragon Phoenix Hall.
These military bigwigs were all quite straightforward. They felt the deal was worthwhile and agreed without much hesitation.
They also weren't worried about Dragon Phoenix Hall going back on its word. After all, they represented entire army groups.
Daring to deceive them would mean offending an entire army group. As long as Dragon Phoenix Hall wasn't foolish, it would never do such a thing.
"It really is just like the young master said—things went so smoothly it almost feels surprising," Di Tian said with a smile after settling matters with all four of them.
After contacting the four major army groups, he opened a spatial passage and left Mingdu with Lin Yi, Yaoling, and the Golden-Winged Roc.
Bi Ji quickly prepared the medicinal ingredients needed to refine the Truth Pill, and Yun Ze began refining it directly in the tenth-floor workshop.
As his soul power grew increasingly abundant, refining pills became easier and easier for him.
As long as he wasn't refining pills like the Hundred-Year Life-Extending Pill or high-grade Ascension Spirit Pills, there was no issue of running out of soul power.
In less than three hours, Yun Ze finished refining a batch of Truth Pills—perfect in quality, yielding ten pills.
"Can this pill really make people tell the truth?" Gu Yuena asked, playing with a Truth Pill in her hand, finding it fascinating.
"Try eating one and see the effect," Yun Ze said.
"Hmm… alright," Gu Yuena thought for a moment, then agreed. She really wanted to see whether this pill was truly that magical.
She placed the pill into her mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed it, even offering a comment afterward: "It tastes pretty good."
After taking it, Gu Yuena carefully sensed the changes in her body, but didn't feel anything particularly special.
"I don't feel anything unusual. This pill of yours couldn't be—"
More than a minute passed, and she still felt no changes. She couldn't help but mutter softly.
"How many years have you lived?" Yun Ze asked casually.
"Five hundred fifty-five thousand, seven thousand, three hundred and twenty-five years," Gu Yuena blurted out.
This was her true lifespan, counted from the moment the Dragon God split into the Golden Dragon King and the Silver Dragon King.
For someone like Di Tian, whose cultivation was close to nine hundred thousand years, he hadn't actually lived that long.
Because of his cultivation talent and the surrounding environmental energy, one day of his cultivation was equivalent to several days of cultivation for an ordinary soul beast.
Under such circumstances, reaching the hundred-thousand-year level of cultivation only required twenty to thirty thousand years.
Even reaching nearly nine hundred thousand years of cultivation, his actual cultivation time amounted to only a little over five hundred thousand years.
In the early stages, when his cultivation was weak, one day of cultivation could equal several days. But as his cultivation increased, this ratio gradually shrank.
Moreover, due to fear of heavenly tribulations, he would deliberately suppress his cultivation progress to avoid dying in a tribulation.
All these factors combined resulted in him taking over five hundred thousand years to reach nearly nine hundred thousand years of cultivation.
Others like him included Bi Ji, the Beast King, Bear King, and many other ferocious beasts.
Even the two million-year soul beasts recorded in history were the same—their true lifespans never actually reached a million years.
"What were you doing during that time?" Yun Ze continued to ask.
"Mostly sleeping to recover from my injuries. I woke up three times in between. The first time was twenty thousand years ago."
"At that time, I sensed an extremely dense aura of the Angel God in the Star Dou Forest and was startled awake."
"I thought the Angel God was coming for me and was fully prepared to fight her to the death."
"Fortunately, she wasn't targeting me. Because I hid myself well, she didn't discover me."
"This awakening lasted the longest—about two hundred years—because not long after, I sensed the aura of the Sea God."
"Later, the auras of the Rakshasa God and the Asura God also appeared. Their presence made it impossible for me to rest peacefully."
"After that, the auras of the War God, the God of Speed, the Phoenix God, and other deities appeared as well."
"I only relaxed and fell back into slumber after all of them had left," Gu Yuena said slowly.
Aside from the Angel God and the Rakshasa God, whose auras disappeared rather quickly, gods like the Asura God, War God, and Food God stayed on the continent for nearly two hundred years.
This made her mistakenly believe that these gods had come to the Douluo Continent to search for her, leaving her anxious and uneasy during that entire period.
It was only after she came to the human world and learned about that period of history that she realized these gods were not the ones she knew, but rather their successors.
Those people were simply playing around on the continent—they weren't searching for her at all. She had been worried for nothing for so long.
As she spoke, her eyes were already wide open, filled with disbelief.
Her mouth was somewhat beyond her control—these words came spilling out no matter what. She couldn't stop herself even if she wanted to.
Gu Yuena tried her hardest to restrain herself, but her mouth still opened and continued speaking:
"The second time I woke up was a little over ten thousand years ago."
"That was during the era when Huo Yuhao was around. At that time, Di Tian seemed to have launched an attack on Shrek."
"When he encountered resistance, he asked me to intervene. I helped him suppress a human powerhouse with the bloodline of the Taotie."
"The third awakening happened not long after that incident. After Huo Yuhao fought Di Tian, he was guided away to the God Realm."
"I was awakened when I sensed the aura of the God Realm," Gu Yuena said, revealing everything.
(End of Chapter)