The credit roll displayed the names of the disciples from Sword Manor.
Special Thanks
Liu Shanhong
Wang San
Hu Jing
etc…
"That…. that's my name!" Liu Shanhong exclaimed, pointing at the screen where his name appeared.
The disciples who had accompanied Liu Shanhong and met Wei Chen that day all saw their names listed as well. A strange sense of pride filled them as they watched.
After the short credit roll, the live feed came to an end, and the screens that had appeared all over the province vanished as if they had never been there at all.
—
Once the live feed ended, Wei Chen immediately sat down on the spot to digest the gains from everything he had absorbed, whether it was the fragments of the Flaming Lotus King's spiritual body or the spiritual qi within the tomb that he had drained completely.
Within his spiritual sea, where his black hole core resided, he saw it working diligently, absorbing the remnants of the Flaming Lotus King's spiritual body.
Even though the Flaming Lotus King had cultivated to the half-step Great Ascension realm, the bulk of his cultivation was built on demonic sacrifice. He had advanced his realm by offering the lives of his subjects, brute-forcing his way past bottlenecks through the lives of countless souls.
As a result, his cultivation was impure. To put it simply, it was like a person who constantly gorged on junk food, becoming bloated and unhealthy, their body filled with fat and cholesterol just waiting to ruin their health.
The Flaming Lotus King's cultivation carried that same feeling. His spiritual qi was saturated with resentment and the curses of countless souls, which the black hole core quickly rejected. It spat them out in a form of unseen radiation, corrupting the ground around him and turning it into cursed land. Only the pure spiritual qi was retained within the core to nourish its growth.
Thus, even though the Flaming Lotus King had reached the half-step Great Ascension Realm, not even half of his cultivation was useful for the growth of the black hole core.
As a result, Wei Chen's cultivation advanced only to the half-step Core Formation Realm instead of crossing the threshold into Core Formation itself.
This left Wei Chen deeply disappointed. The frustration was the same as when you were about to sneeze, but somehow couldn't. That kind of feeling.
With his gains secured and his cultivation stabilized, he decided to use this time to familiarize himself with his newfound power. He didn't want to be like some teenage hero who accidentally smashed his opponent's head simply because he thought his opponent were stronger.
Especially since he had a gut feeling that killing too much would not be good for his career. After all, the Lord of Death had hired him to reduce his workload, not increase it.
He began to practice and adapt to the Combat Techniques and the Cultivation Method bestowed upon him by the Lord of Death.
There were two Combat Techniques and one Cultivation Method.
The first Combat Technique was the one he had already used to kill the Flame Lizard horde and the Flaming Lotus King.
The Underworld Bone Claw, this technique was already at the Great Perfection stage due to the nature of the bestowment, as the Lord of Death had ingrained it directly into Wei Chen's soul, making it second nature to him.
It could be considered one of the top Combat Techniques, so rare and powerful that even those in the upper realms would regard it as heaven-defying.
At the Great Perfection stage, it could manifest the avatar of death, greatly extending its attack range. Since the technique carried the authority of the underworld, it could attack, capture, and destroy both material and immaterial targets, or switch freely between them. Be it human, ghost, curse, or dark arts, none were safe from this technique.
Moreover, injuries caused by this technique would not heal unless the user allowed it. While it might lack overwhelming raw power, its versatility made it one of the most dangerous techniques in existence.
The second was a movement technique: The Shadowless Reaper Step.
At Great Completion, this technique allowed the user to move at high speed, becoming shadowless and traceless, erasing all presence and existence while moving in absolute silence. It could also create phantoms at will to confuse opponents.
Furthermore, the user could switch places with these phantoms at any moment. The number of phantoms increased depending on the user's cultivation strength and mastery of the technique. At present, Wei Chen could create up to one hundred lifelike phantoms if he wished.
Lastly, there was the Cultivation Method: The Samsara Sovereign's Scripture.
Not only did this method greatly accelerate Wei Chen's cultivation speed, but it also allowed him to wield underworld qi without any drawbacks.
In addition, it enhanced his innate comprehension talent, enabling him to understand all Cultivation Methods and Combat Techniques of this world with ease.
It also granted him authority over ghosts, spirits, and even vengeful abominations, provided their cultivation was lower than his own.
He spent about a day and a half familiarizing himself with his newfound strength before rushing back to the entrance to leave the secret realm.
At the entrance, several cultivators from various sects and forces were gathered. They lingered there as if waiting for something. Wei Chen immediately knew they weren't waiting for the secret realm to open, since all of them were at the Nascent Soul stage, beyond the Core Formation Realm restriction of this place.
"Hey! That's him! He finally came out!" one of the cultivators shouted, pointing at Wei Chen.
The moment they saw him, they quickly surrounded him.
Wei Chen let out a tired sigh. He commanded the broadcasting orb to record the situation, but not to broadcast it. He had just ended a live broadcast a day earlier, and starting a new one too soon without meaningful content might bore viewers and diminish their anticipation for the next stream.
"Hand over all the artifacts you took from the secret realm!" the leader roared, pointing his sword at Wei Chen.
Wei Chen calmly observed the cultivators encircling him. All of them were at the Nascent Soul Realm, which meant they weren't native to this prefecture, where Nascent Soul cultivators were typically at the level of sect leaders.
From what he knew, not many powers in this province could mobilize so many Nascent Soul experts at once. Moreover, these people showed no signs of conflicting interests, which strongly suggested they belonged to the same force.
Which major power in this province could deploy more than ten Nascent Soul cultivators?
From his inquiries with Liu Shanhong and the others, Wei Chen knew of three dominant forces that counter balance balance each other in the province:
The righteous faction led by the Heavenly Sword Sect.
The demonic, or unorthodox, faction led by the Sky-Severing Demon Valley.
And finally, the largest settlement and provincial capital, Azure River City.
The problem was… which faction did these idiots come from?
Wei Chen scrutinized the group. They all carried swords and wore the same uniform, but that didn't necessarily mean they were from the Heavenly Sword Sect. Swords were the most common weapon in the cultivation world, anyone with money could buy one. And uniforms were the easiest things to fake.
Besides, if the Heavenly Sword Sect truly wanted his treasures, they wouldn't have sent this group of Nascent Soul cultivators. They would have dispatched an elder at the Soul Transformation Realm.
That meant either they underestimated him, or they simply couldn't mobilize their higher-level combat power. Wei Chen found it far more likely to be the latter.
So, the odds of guessing correctly were one in three…
"Oi… are you guys from Azure River City?" Wei Chen asked casually.
The cultivators reacted the moment they heard the name, though they tried to hide it. Unfortunately for them, their startled expressions didn't escape Wei Chen's eyes.
Seeing this, Wei Chen felt a headache coming. They came from the city, but the city had a bunch of sub-factions, these idiots might even be mercenaries for all he knew. He had thought he could deduce the culprit, but the hole just got deeper.
"Sigh… seriously, did a donkey kick your brain or does your brain work in a different way? Didn't you see I just eliminated the Flaming Lotus King in his own secret realm? What makes you think your numbers alone will even the odds?" Wei Chen asked, curious how these idiots' brains were wired.
"Hmph! You're just an ant from Core Formation Realm! There's no way you can win against us! If you cherish your life, hand them over!" the group leader snarled in a threatening tone.
"Ugh… god damn it… just because your realm is higher doesn't mean you can win, you know?" Without wasting any more time, Wei Chen vanished.
Pow! Bam! Crash! Boom!
After a rapid series of solid object hitting human flesh, the crowd that had surrounded Wei Chen ended up either groaning on the ground, spitting out teeth, or knocked out cold. Their faces showed the damage, missing teeth, large palm or foot prints, and red impressions where they had been slapped.
After dealing with the cultivators, Wei Chen rifled through their belongings, weapons, artifacts, spirit stones, and then ordered the broadcasting orb to record them while he'd stripped off their clothes, just in case.
"Listen here, buddies. If any of you come after me for revenge, I'll broadcast your naked butt cheeks all over the province. Got it?" Wei Chen said with a smile as he lightly slapped the leader's face who nodded repeatedly like a shaken chicken.
Once he had finished with that bunch of hooligans, Wei Chen sped off toward Sword Manor.