Chapter 97
Two days later, dirty old man and Wu Feihua rushed back to the Dog Ear Mountain with an extremely ugly face.
Wang Lu’s five hundred spirit stones were, in fact, much more than what was needed for the procurement. Thus, naturally, the remaining portion was to become the two people’s errand fee. Although Wang Lu didn’t explicitly say it, that was the two people’s thought. By the Director’s astuteness, wouldn’t his intention so obvious when he gave money so generously?
Unfortunately, when the two contacted the nearest merchant, ready to purchase, they were mercilessly slaughtered. The merchant just skimmed through the list and told them his offer: six hundred spirit stones.
This was higher than the budget that Wang Lu gave them, so how could He Yun agree? However, the opposite party could see through him and thus gave He Yun an ultimatum: if you want to buy it, then buy, if you don’t, then get lost!
How could He Yun not buy? Wang Lu has given him two days time; if the time was out, he didn’t dare to imagine the consequences. Let alone these pieces of materials were supposed to be worth around three hundred spirit stones, so how could it suddenly be twice of that!?
When he inquired about it, he finally understood. These materials were naturally cheaper in the Mysterious Sky Mansion, but based on their status, they basically couldn’t even pass the doorstep of the Mysterious Sky Mansion. Therefore, this transaction was basically no different than a black market transaction, so the price was naturally high.
Without no other choice, the two of them had to resort on haggling. Finally, they managed to get a wholesale price of five hundred spirit stones, which, to them, was equal to running a fruitless errand. Initially, they thought they could embezzle a couple of hundred spirit stones from this errand—however, this was normal. The two of them were still on probation for their previous crimes, so how could Wang Lu kindly give them the opportunity to get rich?
Nevertheless, thinking about the altar establishment, the two of them roused up their spirit. They have worked for the Seven Stars Sect for many years, yet they have not enjoyed the advantage of an altar; but from the procurement of these materials, they knew that their Mr. Director has lofty ambitions to create an exceptional altar.
Although they still couldn’t make out the specific type of the altar to the best of their knowledge, but even if it was just the Ninth Rank Altar, its power definitely far outshines that of the Seven Stars Sect, that second hand Ward Off Fifth Elements Beings Array! Combined with the relatively rich surrounding spiritual energy in the Wang Family Village, at least, the altar could definitely condense out over a hundred spirit stones per day—this may not seem like much, but over a year, it would reach tens of thousands, not to mention the condensation of spirit stones was just one of the most common function of the altar.
The only problem was, could this altar really be constructed?
It was not that they looked down on Wang Lu. In fact, when they first arrived at Wang Family Village, Wang Lu had immediately retrieved back his Sword of Mount Kun. In order to further establish his prestige, Wang Lu told He Yun to attack him. However, even after exhausting all of his low-level Foundation Establishment skills and technique, to the point of seriously having a murderous intention, he couldn’t break through Wang Lu’s three feet long sword defense.
In the end, the only question was how exactly was Wang Lu going to achieve this spiritual energy tide?
——
On this bright and cool autumn weather day, there was a fiery scene at the Wang Family Village. The simple villagers were actually decorating the village with lanterns and so on to welcome the visit of his honorable self, the Daoist Immortal. The villagers also hung a couplet at the entrance of the village; though what they wrote was incomprehensible nonsense, the villagers have undoubtedly shown their enthusiasm for the visit of the Daoist Immortal.
In the midst of this festive atmosphere, the comrades of Intelligence Revenue Service, oh, wrong, Wisdom Sect’s Daoist Immortals descended on the floating clouds.
This time, the entire Wisdom Sect’s team came together. First to descend was the Holy Maiden Feng Ling, then Vice Sect Leader He Yun, Elder Wu Feihua, and lastly, a fatty with ordinary appearance. When Wang Qinian curiously inquired about it…
Holy Maiden lightly said, “Oh, he’s just the strong man that we’ll use to build the altar.”
The fatty inwardly burst into tears. He was a genuine Spirit Sword Sect’s Inner Court Disciple, yet his status at the Intelligence Revenue Service was even lower than Wu Feihua! Fortunately, this so-called position was basically nonsense, and everything depended on the whim of the Director.
However, Wang Qinian didn’t dare to disregard this fatty’s great strength. After that, a burst of inquiry about him ensued; the fatty had never experienced this kind of situation. In the past, as the son of the teacher of the state, people sometimes crowded around him, yet he had never been surrounded by the countryside people like this! In desperation, he kept his silence and truly assumed the image of a strong man.
Along with lines of villagers, the group came to the preset location of the altar—needless to say, Wang Lu had personally picked this location.
It was the Village Head’s home—this location could be considered as payback to Wang Qinian for showing up on Wang Fugui’s house and screaming out streams of abuse a few days ago.
Wang Qinian himself was still in the dark about this. Seeing the several Daoist Immortals stop in front of his house, he curiously asked. “Excuse me, Daoist Immortals, this is…”
Holy Maiden Feng Ling lightly said, “To construct the altar.”
“… Here?”
Feng Ling nodded. “Yes, this place has good geomancy. So, it will be the best location to construct the altar.”
Wang Qinian, unable to believe himself, asked, “T-Then what about my house?”
Feng Ling smiled. “Of course, it’s going to be demolished. It’s okay, I’ll get that strong man to construct a new one for you.”
“B-But…” Wang Qinian stuttered, but before he could finish, he heard the Holy Maiden chuckle.
“Hey, are you unhappy? No problem, we’re just going cancel the construction, dirty old… He Yun, let’s go.”
The several people began to turn around. The anxious Wang Qinian was thrown off guard. “Daoist Immortals, please don’t go! You can demolish, you can demolish my house!”
“Good, then we’ll proceed right away.”
“Wait a minute, there are things in my house!”
Holy Maiden knitted her brows. “Oh, you’re so annoying, just now, you said we could demolish, and a second later you, said we can’t, make up your mind, okay? Don’t tell me we have to wait here for you to slowly move your house away?”
Wang Qinian was at a loss and went silent for a moment. But then he heard the villagers behind him said, “Village Head, didn’t you say the altar construction is very important for the village? If anyone dares to hold it back, then…”
Wang Qinian inwardly cursed, however, outwardly, he still responded with a smile, “Demolish! Demolish it!”
As soon as his voice fell, he immediately heard a dull thumping sound. The dirty old man had cast a spell and simultaneously fired off three talismans, which then released a huge amount of magical power. In an instant, the house was leveled to the ground.
Those many years of tamping the brick wall, the thick beams, and neat tiles… In a twinkling of an eye were reduced to a two palm thick layer, and then further sank into the soil and was flushed with the ground.
For a loose Foundation Establishment Cultivator like the dirty old man, the result of this spell was actually quite astonishing. The dirty old man smiled as he lightly patted the paper with “Wreck” character written on it. He thought that he was fortunate that Wang Lu had given him several pages of an incomplete Ancient Immortal Cultivation book. He only practiced it for a few days, and he had already completely recovered from all the internal injuries that he had received in the Marquis County that day. He also nearly got back all of his skills, and some of them even had some progress!
Even though this heavy pressure spell was achieved by the power of talismans, but prior to this, such a rapid release of spells and such an exquisite control of power were beyond his reach. It was really a good-fortune-will-come-after-one-escapes-from-calamity situation that he had reached this condition in mere days! Ha! Buttering up this famous sect’s disciple surely brings a lot benefit. A pity he didn’t have this kind of opportunity during his time in the Seven Stars Sect…
While the dirty old man was secretly congratulating himself over his luck, the dust had fallen to the ground. Near the flat ground, most of the villagers’ jaws had also dropped, including the Village Head, who wanted to cry but had no tears.
The dirty old man chuckled. “What do you think, this demolition is beautiful, isn’t it?”
Wang Qinian tremblingly replied, “Daoist Immortal’s spell is godlike, this is a beautiful demolition, extremely beautiful!”
“Yes, you’ve got eyes! Rest assured, after the altar is complete, I will make that strong man build a new house for you. It would be more magnificent than this broken house!”
Of course, this was Wang Lu’s instruction as the reward and punishment from the Intelligence Revenue Service. Wang Qinian, in his two years of ignorance, had made all sorts of folly; he deserved a punishment. However, the old Village Head had been cautious and conscientious for decades, so even if he had no contribution, he still deserved some credit for his hard work. As such, why should Wang Lu let him homeless?
After the demolition, the dirty old man moved his fingers and made a seal, and a large number of materials, that had long been prepared, flew out of his mustard seed bag. In sequence, they positioned themselves in a circular array on that level ground.
The amounts of the materials used and their arrangement had long been planned by Wang Lu. After the materials were completely placed into order, the spell quickly stopped.
At the same time, in the middle of that circular array, a plain, average looking youth appeared.
The dirty old man and the other on his team immediately prostrated themselves. “Welcome, Sect Leader!”
Wang Lu, who had just come out from the invisibility spell, fully displayed his professional actor self-trained acting proficiency. With an indifferent look, he waved his hand. “You may rise. My time in the mortal world is limited, so we should get started. Tell the villagers to stay away, lest they get in the way.”
Upon seeing Wang Lu’s appearance, Wang Qinian and the other villagers really thought he was a True Immortal who descended to the world of mortals. This made them excited beyond words. Unfortunately, before they could prostrate towards him, they were already dispersed by Wu Feihua, freeing up a spacious stage for the group’s performance.
The rest of the show was highly anticipated by He Yun and the rest.
How could a low-level Qi Cultivating Stage cultivator form the spiritual energy tide? And based on Wang Lu’s skill, what kind of altar would he create? From the point of view of the materials, it was likely to be an Eight Rank one… When he was young, the dirty old man’s first sect, Jade Forest Sect, also had an Eight Rank Fire Altar, which made the other nearby Immortal Cultivation Sects envious!
Holy Maiden Feng Ling was also curious. Although she wasn’t too clear about the principle behind this altar thing, she had also seen it quite often enough in the Spirit Sword Mountain. The Spirit Sword Sect occupied the most lucrative location in terms of spiritual energy in the Blue River Region. Naturally, they wouldn’t let it go to waste. Inside the sect, there were many altars. Most of them were Sixth Elder Lu Li’s handiwork. He was the Elder in charge of the Sect’s finance, who was also gifted in altar construction. When he was in the Xudan Stage, he constructed his first altar, a Seventh Rank Fire Altar… However, right now, Wang Lu’s ambition seemed loftier than that of Lu Li’s.
As the focus attention of the people, Wang Lu expressionlessly walked to the middle of the circular array. He then paced around it a little, slightly adjusted the altar material, and then slowly closed his eyes.
In an instant, the outside world disappeared from Wang Lu. In his mind, there was an only an ocean of surrounding spiritual energy.
To construct an altar, there were only two paths. Either by using a Jindan or Xudan’s valiant Primordial Spirit to control the surrounding spiritual energy, pulling and pushing it in order to force it to form a spiritual energy tide. As for the other path… it required fine calculation of the workings of the surrounding spiritual energy and to find the best opportunity to apply the principle of pushing a very big weight using a very small power and decisively act upon it, thus completing this jumping-the-rank miracle!
In the past, Elder Lu Li relied on his keen Primordial Spirit Sense to accurately find the spiritual energy movement node and used his low-level Xudan Stage cultivation to build the altar. Elder Lu Li possessed first-rate Heavenly Spirit Root, and among the Heavenly Sword Hall’s ten Elders, his aptitude was at the forefront. If it was Fang He or Liu Xian, they absolutely couldn’t do the same feat.
However, with Wang Lu’s Void Spirit Root, his keen perception was many times more than the common Heavenly Spirit Root! Even now when his cultivation was still low and his Primordial Spirit weak, he could still sense the surrounding spiritual energy movement within several hundreds of meters away from him.
Of course, being able to sense it was far from adequate. The next step was to use one own’s power to drive the spiritual energy to revolve, gathering them together and spreading them out again… along with a particular rhythm so that they could form the continuous rise and fall of the spiritual energy tide.
This was a really difficult step. According to the textbook of Elder Lu Li, if one wanted to smoothly spur the surrounding spiritual energy, at least, one needed to use one’s Primordial Spirit form that was already ninety percent virtual and ten percent real, which approximately happened in the middle-level Foundation Establishment Stage. This was simply according to the theory. In those days, Lu Li, while his Primordial Spirit form was fifty percent virtual and fifty percent real, was already able to successfully build an altar.
At present, Wang Lu’s Primordial Spirit virtual form was basically still in a complete mess. Let alone real, even his virtual form wasn’t even thoroughly condensed, thus, his ability to constrain the surrounding spiritual energy was almost non-existent. However… to manipulate the surrounding spiritual energy, one might not necessarily need to use one’s Primordial Spirit’s external power. Ninety percent virtual and ten percent real wasn’t the only condition for doing it, and Wang Lu has another tool that could accomplish the same result.
Within his Inner Mansion, his Emperor Bone trembled, and his two hundred and six Jade Pillars started to “breathe”.