Chapter 829: Sir, Times Have Changed
Chen Fei looked around at the seven Mountain Sea Realm cultivators. In just a few breaths’ time, he had slain them all.
This was the result of a huge disparity in strength.
Even though they were all in the same Mountain Sea Realm, it was still like this.
Chen Fei had accumulated too many talents, totaling six in all.
According to the sect’s martial arts teachings, even the most outstanding prodigies among them, reaching the peak of the Mountain Sea Realm, only had five talents. Chen Fei’s current talents have already exceeded even the peak of the Mountain Sea Realm.
Moreover, each of Chen Fei’s talents was of high quality. Besides the newly acquired talent of Divine Blessing, the others had all been cultivated to a state of Great Completion. In this situation, who in the same realm could compete with Chen Fei?
Chen Fei waved his hand, and seven clusters of spiritual essence appeared, along with seven slightly damaged spiritual treasures.
The problem with the middle-grade spiritual treasures wasn’t significant; under the strike of the Qianyuan Sword, their spirituality merely diminished slightly.
As for the fourth-grade low-grade spiritual treasures, being forcefully slashed by the Qianyuan Sword, they even showed faint cracks.
It can be imagined how powerful Chen Fei’s attacks were, reaching a level where even spiritual treasures couldn’t withstand them.
Putting everything away into his sleeves, Chen Fei retracted his formation. Just as he was about to leave, his footsteps suddenly hesitated.
“So there’s still this kind of strange technique!”
Chen Fei’s figure flickered and disappeared from the spot. Within the City Lord’s Mansion, all traces of Chen Fei’s aura and soul imprint vanished into thin air.
When Chen Fei reappeared, he was already in a courtyard within Profound Cloud City.
People lived in the courtyard, but the strongest among them was only at the Combined Aperture Tempering realm. With a wave of Chen Fei’s hand, everyone immediately fell unconscious.
Chen Fei entered a house where servants lived. With a light tap of his right foot, several ripples flashed across the ground. Accompanied by the sound of a breaking formation, a wooden box leaped out and flew wildly outward.
Chen Fei extended his right hand forward, and with a great force, the wooden box was dragged back into his palm.
“Have mercy, don’t kill me, I’ll do anything…”
The terrified voice of Qu Haifan rang out, but before he could finish speaking, Chen Fei exerted a slight force. The entire wooden box suddenly exploded into dust, falling through Chen Fei’s fingers.
Zhong Qixue and the others were all dead, but Qu Haifan unexpectedly had a contingency plan.
This was his soul fragment, a kind of clone, which could be considered as a backup, but it would only activate after the main soul dissipated.
When Chen Fei was in the City Lord’s Mansion earlier, he sensed an anomaly in Qu Haifan’s soul and upon closer inspection, identified Qu Haifan’s issue.
It must be said that this technique was quite effective for life preservation, although it certainly had other drawbacks. However, for many who sought contingencies, it was a viable choice.
It’s just a pity that Qu Haifan encountered Chen Fei.
Having cultivated the Divine Blessing Dream Entry Technique, Chen Fei was extremely sensitive to subtle fluctuations like this, which enabled him to detect something amiss.
Otherwise, Qu Haifan might have actually managed to escape.
Though Chen Fei wasn’t afraid, having such potential threats lurking was still a concern. One never knew when it might suddenly become a fatal blow.
Chen Fei employed his Illusionary Form technique, disappearing within Profound Cloud City.
Based on the recent speed of the city’s stewards, it would take at least another quarter of an hour for them to arrive here. Chen Fei had ample time to leave.
As for scavenging Profound Cloud City, any more valuable spiritual herbs or pills would only be found among the spiritual treasures of the Mountain Sea Realm.
After all, no matter how secure elsewhere might seem, it wouldn’t bring peace of mind like having them on oneself.
With the capacity of spiritual treasures, even low-grade ones could hold a great deal, so there was no worry about carrying too much.
Chen Fei appeared dozens of miles outside Profound Cloud City and activated a formation he had set up.
In the next moment, dark clouds gathered over the entire sky of Profound Cloud City, shaking the spiritual energy of the surrounding area for tens of miles.
Such commotion immediately caught the attention of nearby forces, who quickly relayed the information to the stewards of the Sacred City.
Recently, with the Black Divine loyalists attacking everywhere, people were on edge. At the slightest disturbance, they sought to report to the stewards of the Sacred City.
In Profound Cloud City, many people stared blankly at the unusual phenomenon in the sky.
The battle in the City Lord’s Mansion had ended too swiftly, obscured by formations, leaving many unaware that all the Mountain Sea Realm experts of Profound Cloud City had been slain.
Only the core members of the few influential forces in the Mountain Sea Realm noticed their ancestral soul tokens shattered.
Among these forces, not all disciples had joined the Black Divine’s faction; only some peak Combined Aperture Tempering realm experts had sided with the Black Divine.
Unlike Spring Jade Valley, where outsiders were not allowed, Profound Cloud City housed a large number of ordinary people, similar to Thousand Geese City.
Chen Fei planned to leave these peak Combined Aperture Tempering realm experts who had joined the Black Divine’s faction for the stewards of the Sacred City. Perhaps the Sacred City could use them to uncover more Black Divine loyalists.
It had been challenging, but within the Sacred City, with its myriad miraculous techniques and methods, achieving this had not seemed impossible.
The chaos in the Sacred City offered no benefit to Chen Fei; he had hoped for stability to have enough time to grow.
Setting aside the current turmoil in Profound Cloud City, once Chen Fei returned to Thousand Geese City, he had begun sorting through Qu Haifan and his companions’ collections.
Leaving aside other spiritual herbs, pills, and high-grade elemental stones for now.
On the way back, Chen Fei had briefly inspected seven spiritual treasures. If these seven spiritual treasures could be successfully sold, Chen Fei would have been able to obtain around eighty thousand high-grade elemental stones.
This would have directly translated to twenty strands of Myriad Bamboo!
However, these seven spiritual treasures had a problem—they had been acquired through assassination.
Unlike the two mid-stage Mountain Sea Realm experts Chen Fei had openly defeated in Thousand Geese City earlier, where he could trade their possessions without issue.
But these seven spiritual treasures had been obtained through covert means.
Chen Fei could have slowly used the power of the void to erase the imprints left on the treasures, but if he had casually taken them to the Green Cloud Market, he would likely have attracted immediate attention.
It hadn’t been that people in Green Cloud Market were greedy for wealth, but if you suddenly sold so many spiritual treasures at once, it would have inevitably been suspected that they were obtained through violent means.
Although Chen Fei could have split the sales among several shops, there was still inherent risk.
Facing the current threat of the Black Divine, the vast majority of Mountain Sea Realm experts were within the Sacred City, with very few roaming outside.
If you were to display so many spiritual treasures, people would inevitably associate you with being a follower of the Black Divine.
Back in the day, before the Black Divine’s rise, Chen Fei could have easily traveled to multiple cities and sold off these treasures without much trouble.
He could have even sold them in markets that didn’t inquire too deeply about their origins.
If someone targeted Chen Fei’s wealth, perhaps he could have made another fortune.
But times had changed. Facing the threat of the Black Divine, unity prevailed among many.
Chen Fei couldn’t suppress his aura now, and his soul imprint couldn’t be altered. Relying on disguises or similar methods, even slowly making moves in Green Cloud Market, was no longer feasible.
“In the techniques exchanged in the Sacred Land, there are a few similar to breath-concealing techniques, but their effects are weak. At most, they can conceal the aura of one or two Divine Palaces.”
Chen Fei frowned. Concealing the aura of just one or two Divine Palaces would require reaching the state of Great Completion. Even if Chen Fei broke through to the later stages of the Mountain Sea Realm, he might still struggle to fully conceal his presence.
While such techniques weren’t entirely useless, they offered too little value for Chen Fei.
With a wave of his hand, the secret chamber instantly filled with various spiritual herbs, pills, and high-grade elemental stones, creating a dazzling sight.
Nowadays, selling some spiritual herbs and pills was the only way to avoid drawing too much attention.
After all, acquiring spiritual herbs and pills didn’t necessarily involve killing and plundering. In the current deserted state of other regions on the Middle Continent, finding spiritual herbs wasn’t particularly difficult.
First, Chen Fei allocated seven clusters of spiritual essence to several spiritual treasures according to their importance, primarily to the Qianyuan Sword.
Depending on their significance, the distribution of spiritual essence naturally varied.
Currently, the most important spiritual treasures for Chen Fei were the Qianyuan Sword, the Concealment Bell, the Shadow Lock Bow, followed by the Astonishing Spirit Jade Pendant and the Dream Shadow Stone.
The Astonishing Spirit Jade Pendant was a precautionary measure, and he would only allocate extra spiritual essence to the Dream Shadow Stone if there were leftovers.
Half an hour later, the entire room filled with spiritual herbs and pills had disappeared without a trace, stored away inside the Qianyuan Sword by Chen Fei.
He harvested around forty thousand high-grade elemental stones, with the vast majority coming from three mid-stage Mountain Sea Realm experts.
The quantity was less than Chen Fei had initially imagined, but considering these were all followers of the Black Divine, they likely had spent considerable high-grade elemental stones on their cultivation recently due to insights gained from their techniques.
The estimated value of the unused spiritual herbs was around seventeen thousand high-grade elemental stones.
With these high-grade elemental stones plus the spiritual herbs, Chen Fei could exchange them for fourteen strands of Myriad Bamboo.
If the seven spiritual treasures could be successfully sold, this would increase to thirty-four strands of Myriad Bamboo.
Coupled with the earlier harvest from Luo Haiwei, the two mid-stage Mountain Sea Realm experts he had killed, Chen Fei could already push his Divine Blessing talent to the state of Great Completion.
Previously at the Ethereal Lake, Chen Fei had also left behind plenty of cultivation pills, enough to forge a Divine Palace.
In other words, if he could sell off what he had on hand, Chen Fei could immediately achieve six Divine Palaces, reaching the pinnacle of the mid-stage Mountain Sea Realm.
Chen Fei’s thoughts raced. With this pace of cultivation, he was progressing faster than he had in the early days of the Combined Aperture Tempering realm.
If this news got out, it would be simply unbelievable. Even those who had aligned with the Black Divine couldn’t possibly achieve such progress.
It wasn’t that the Black Divine couldn’t do it; rather, without sufficient merit, the Black Divine wouldn’t just impart insights into their techniques.
After a moment, Chen Fei’s emotions calmed. However, would consecutive breakthroughs in such a short period of time be too conspicuous in the eyes of the stewards of the Sacred City?
When the time came, would he explain the reason behind the Divine Blessing Dream Entry Technique?
Certainly, records of the Divine Blessing Dream Entry Technique existed in the major Sacred Lands, influenced by the lasting impression left by the Dream Shadow Master in the past.
Chen Fei’s main concern was that if the stewards of the Sacred City detected anything awry, they might deploy Sun Moon Realm experts to capture him directly.
If those Sun Moon Realm experts possessed methods to probe followers of the Black Divine, the Black Divine’s insignia in Chen Fei’s possession would not just be a liability but also a significant risk.
Yet, if Chen Fei had voluntarily discarded the Black Divine’s insignia, he wouldn’t be able to discern who among them were followers of the Black Divine in the future.
Furrowing his brow slightly, Chen Fei pondered the drawbacks of each approach.
“I wonder if there’s been any news about the tasks previously posted in the Mission Hall!”
Shaking his head to clear his mind of distractions, Chen Fei retrieved a jade slip.
This jade slip came from Qu Haifan and contained a technique for separating divine souls, the only inheritance among their collections that had piqued Chen Fei’s interest.