Battle Frenzy

Frankly speaking, they didn’t care whether the Holy City fined or imprisoned Wang Zhong; that was none of their business. However, they were afraid that Wang Zhong would be banished from the Holy City directly! If this big piece of meat was banished, what would happen to his second-class apprentice position? The competition in the Holy City was too fierce, and many had suffered way too many emotional blows. The desire to take over Wang Zhong’s position was how a lot of people were keeping their fighting spirit up.

The newcomer circle was having a furious debate about this matter. They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry while talking about Wang Zhong’s ridiculous actions. Wang Zhong was kept in a small room, waiting for his fate to be announced.

Despite the noise outside, Wang Zhong was rather calm. It was Simba who couldn’t stop grumbling and complaining. Obviously, the almighty Simba didn’t like the Headless Knight at all. The Headless Knight caused them to suffer so much in the Decapitation Canyon; now, he got them into trouble again.

 “This Wang Zhong…” Teacher Bobo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry either.

 The results of the investigation, which was carried out according to protocol, were out. They had made sense of the process of the entire incident. It was the first time Wang Zhong tried to use a summoning array, and he included a bone fragment that he brought back from the Dimensional World. Originally, he intended to summon a small skeleton, but he felt a strong aura instead which scared him silly. A massive explosion caused by the collapse of the spatial ward ensued.

 Of course, they couldn’t only listen to one side of the story, so the investigation team had collected evidence from the explosion site. Wang Zhong’s statement matched the pattern of spatial fluctuations and the testaments of some Holy Disciples at the scene. The investigation came to an end, and a final conclusion was reached. Insufficient power and insufficient control of wards — as well as poor adaptation to the unforeseen circumstances — had resulted in the ward going out of control. That dark creature hadn’t really been summoned out, or else no matter how strong it was, it wouldn’t be able to escape the monitoring of the Holy City.

 There was nothing wrong with Wang Zhong’s statement, so the two Great Teachers in charge of the investigation concluded this to be an experimental accident. Of course, this involved illegal activity that went against the laws involving subsidiary jobs, but the Great Teachers didn’t need to bother with this sort of trivial matter. They weren’t very interested in what happened to Wang Zhong. They only went over that night as they felt the terrifying dark aura and thought a Warlord from the dark side had arrived in their world. That would have made them excited. If there really was a Warlord, they might have been happier.

 As for Wang Zhong and the collapse of the dormitory buildings, this incident that was a big deal to the newcomers was just peanuts to the Great Teachers. A country had its laws and a city its rules. Wang Zhong would be dealt with accordingly.

 Wang Zhong was from the Tyrants’ Tempering Faculty, so he would be handed over to the Tyrants to decide how he would compensate and so on. The Holy City just wanted to know the result.

 This matter was handed over to Teacher Bobo from the Tempering Faculty. Based on the rules, Bobo had jurisdiction over this matter. There were many teachers who could deal with this matter: the stricter ones would reduce Wang Zhong to a slave or banish him from the Holy Land at the very least. Few teachers would want to waste time on this sort of matter, but Teacher Bobo was considered to be the teacher with the best personality in the Holy Land. It was a miracle he could become a teacher there as he was considered an odd one in the Holy Land.

 After he took the effort to understand the entire process of the accident, Bobo didn’t think that it was a big matter. In essence, it had little to do with Wang Zhong. Anyway, the Holy Land encouraged every Holy Apprentice to explore various professions. Honestly, who hadn’t tried to draw a basic summoning array in their dorm? It could only be said that Wang Zhong had bad luck, meeting with an accident when he was doing this for the first time. On the bright side, this meant that he was very talented too.

 Accidental?

 In the cultivation journey, accidents represented many things. It was up to you whether you were able to turn these accidents into good things.

 After scolding and educating him, Bobo made Wang Zhong guard a warehouse. Wang Zhong was to clean the warehouse, as well as to eat and live there, since there was no new dorm for him. This was a very good piece of news to Wang Zhong. Although this incident seemed serious, they let him off easily, and Wang Zhong could leave just like that.

 Wang Zhong hummed while bickering with Simba. Simba hated the Headless Knight a lot, but unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything since the Headless Knight was Wang Zhong’s second Dharma Idol. He continued following the map according to Teacher Bobo’s instructions. This place appeared to be really remote. It definitely wasn’t considered to be in the inner city area since it wasn’t located inside of the defensive barrier. However, it wasn’t located in the civilian area either. The surrounding area was desolate. Other than a long row of empty townhouses and warehouses, you couldn’t even see a single person.

 It was said that this was the old warehouse area, and some discarded materials were left behind here. They weren’t of much value, but it was a pity to throw them away, so they had been left here. After a plague had appeared here, no one lived here anymore. The living conditions in this neighborhood were bad, and it was troublesome to travel back and forth from the city area. Everyone was a practitioner in the Holy Land, but no one thought that cultivation was equivalent to enduring hardships. In the Holy Land, cultivation itself was torture, but in terms of living conditions, people definitely enjoyed it like they were in heaven. The high material standard of living in the Holy Land was beyond imagination, and people lived luxuriously whenever they could. To the strong, these material factors gave them spiritual pleasure and convenience.

 Wang Zhong was content with his punishment, and Simba was even more pleased. After knowing that this was an abandoned area, Wang Zhong released Simba out into the open. To have an outdoor space to move freely in was something that Simba had always been looking forward to, but it had, so far, been unattainable. This area was not bad; he could finally move around freely and didn’t need to be confined to a small dorm room.

 “The Great Simba is very satisfied!” Simba smiled, his eyes narrowing to a slit. He rushed to the front while riding on Big White and howling. There were so many warehouses for them to play in. “Let’s build a perfect nest together!”

 “What nest? Choose your words wisely.” Wang Zhong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I’m not a bird.”

 “You have one!” Simba laughed loudly, taking a fancy to the biggest room in a warehouse immediately. The stuff in the warehouse had already been removed, making it seem empty but also relatively cleaner. There was even a second story.

“This is the legendary single villa! An exclusive villa that belongs to Simba!” Simba cried with excitement. He had been dreaming about this but never thought he would be able to live in a villa. Looking at the beautiful little staircase, his eyes were shining.

 “Fly, fly!” Under Simba, Big White wanted to express something eagerly but was smacked on the head by Simba instead. “The second story is mine!”

 Big White had always been in charge of acting cute. Recently, Big White had grown much bigger under the nourishment of Wang Zhong’s Soul Power and had started to show a little intelligence. Although its growth process wasn’t fast, it hadn’t stopped at all. This dude might really think that it was its duty to be a mount under Simba’s brainwashing.

“Fly, fly!” Big White exclaimed in an attempt to curry favor with Simba.

 “Fine, seeing how devoted you are, you can sleep on the floor under the Great Simba’s bed. Remember, you are still just a servant. The second story will always belong to the almighty Simba!”

 With Big White’s intelligence, it couldn’t understand what a servant was and was just happy to be able to stay there. Big White got excited suddenly and worked harder while flying around with Simba on its back. “What are you guys doing? Come down and help me move stuff!” Wang Zhong shouted from the first floor.

 It seemed that his punishment of guarding warehouses was just for show; there was nothing much to guard here. However, Wang Zhong still had to clean the place he stayed at, so he let Simba bring Big White to do work. In the meantime, Wang Zhong was observing his second Dharma Idol, the Headless Knight. He couldn’t even start to imagine that this powerful dark creature who had scared the sh*t out of them would become his Dharma Idol, not even in his wildest dreams. This was probably a magical effect caused by the fusion of the Fate Stone and the stone slab. This led Wang Zhong to especially look forward to the stone slab that the feudal lord Caslort promised to give them. What surprises could that bring?

 During the battle, he didn’t have time to observe the Headless Knight carefully. At this moment, Wang Zhong could clearly feel the ‘beauty’ of this terrifying knight. Yes, the beauty of death. His lost head was replaced by black and grayish death aura. He expressed his emotions through this ball of death aura. Dressed in a handsome and somber-looking black armor, he really seemed rather good-looking. Perhaps after being cleansed by the Fate Stone, those disgusting emotions and smell were gone, but he still retained the essence of death. The skeleton horse under him looked even taller and mightier. Wang Zhong sensed that this skeleton horse had a significant amount of combat power too. Also, the essence of the Headless Knight’s black spear could be seen now. With a length of three meters and with precise carvings on it, it was definitely a god-level weapon. Of course, after he became a Dharma Idol bodyguard, the Headless Knight’s overall combat power had dropped to that of the Heroic Soul Stage, which meant that this poor kid’s power had dropped down the ranks.

 Actually, Wang Zhong was thinking whether the Headless Knight was attracted to something for him to seek him out deliberately.

 Wang Zhong wanted to communicate with his new Dharma Idol bodyguard, but he realized that there was no response. Compared to Salamander, the Headless Knight’s responses seemed to be very weak, but Wang Zhong sensed that this guy was more savage than Salamander.

 Thinking that he should make the best of all available resources and for everyone to get to know each other better, Wang Zhong summoned Salamander and the Headless Knight out to get used to working with each other. And currently, tidying up their surroundings was the important task at hand.

 Other people treated their Dharma Idol like a god that was as important as their life. Wang Zhong and Simba were probably the only ones who could think of summoning these powerful Dharma Idols to do menial work. When Bolsanches the Headless Knight was at his full power, he could take on half the Federation and face dozens of Heavenly Soul Stage experts by himself. However, he was now riding on his skeleton horse and moving tables and chairs, treating this job seriously. If the Heavenly Soul Stage experts who battled against the Headless Knight previously saw this scene, they would probably vomit blood.

 This was f*cking dope!

 As the ‘chief commander’, Simba obviously showed favoritism and constantly commanded Bolsanches around. Who asked this dude to torture everyone previously? Every dog had its day; it was his turn to suffer now!

 “Move the chair away and move the table here.”

 “You idiot! Is that a table? Don’t you have eyes? Hmm… You really don’t seem to have any… Fine, but that’s not an excuse! What are you standing there for? Are you unwilling to be instructed by the almighty Simba? Let’s have a one-on-one duel, you idiot!

 “Ahem, let’s leave the duel for another time… No fighting! Get on with work!”

 Simba was in high spirits and full of vim. This was so satisfying!

 ……

 Wang Zhong hadn’t been slacking off during these few days of punishment. Other than the few times he was called upon for questioning, he spent the rest of his time meditating and cultivating. This calm and innocent attitude was also part of the reason why the Great Teachers had let him off easy.

 Although he was constantly making advancements in his journey of creating his Soul Core, heading in the correct direction didn’t necessarily mean that he could succeed easily. In some cases, you could feel how far away you were from your goal, ironically, when you made progress; this was probably because you had a better understanding of what you still had to do.

 His weak Soul Power was the biggest stumbling block hindering his cultivation speed. Five thousand Grassos of Soul Power could only provide a possibility of creating his Soul Core. This was a process that required an extended period of time to accumulate power. If you wanted to do this quickly, you had to be at the Peak Heroic Soul Stage.

 Wang Zhong had been accumulating his Soul Power the normal way, draining his Soul Sea and then replenishing it again. He could increase the capacity of his Soul Power every time he did that, but this cultivation method was very slow. Every increment of one Grasso of Soul Power required him to repeat this method at least dozens of times. Yet, as the capacity of his Soul Sea increased, this method became less effective, and as his Soul Sea grew larger, the draining and replenishing process took longer. Wang Zhong hadn’t stopped this cultivation method ever since he reached the Middle Phase Heroic Soul Stage. No matter how busy he was, he would devote a large amount of time to doing this. However, it had been a month, and he had only increased his power by less than 100 Grassos. Wang Zhong made a rough estimate: if he depended on this method solely to increase his power, it would take him at least five or six years to complete his Heroic Soul Stage journey. This was way too slow.

 It was getting late after Wang Zhong concluded his cultivation for the day and pulled himself out of his meditative state. Simba and Big White were still squabbling downstairs. Making a lot of noise, Simba seemed to have taken over the Headless Knight’s spear to use as a construction tool, seemingly to renovate the warehouse space downstairs.

Wang Zhong was about to go downstairs to see what the others had accomplished today when his Skylink rang. It was a message from Lan Daier. “You’ve been released? Come over, and let me take a look to see if a piece of meat is missing from you.”

 Recently, Lan Daier seemed to speak more casually with him. Wang Zhong liked this feeling; it felt more intimate and made him more excited. To put it plainly, he was attracted to her, but he didn’t know if he was attractive in her eyes. Although Teacher Lan Daier was very good to him, Wang Zhong wasn’t one to be narcissistic. Everyone knew that gourmets were the most popular soul mates. They were beautiful, smart, and faithful, not to mention the benefits they brought to your cultivation journey. In the Holy Land, there were many pairings of gourmets with Great Teachers or even Holy Saint Teachers. Lan Daier was definitely on the top-10 most-attractive people list in the Holy Land. As for others like Helen who were said to be beauties and experts, that was just business etiquette.

 Since his teacher called him, Wang Zhong didn’t want to waste time. He set off immediately.

Actually, even Wang Zhong didn’t know what kind of relationship he had with Lan Daier. He had always been doing the job of taste-testing. Perhaps they could be regarded as employer and employee. However, honestly speaking, he probably couldn’t pay Lan Daier back for the Palulu Turkey that she previously gave him even if he helped her taste-test for a few years. This was also why Wang Zhong didn’t ask when Lan Daier didn’t mention his salary. This employer-and-employee relationship seemed a little ambiguous. Since the Samsara wine made its way into Lan Daier’s restaurant, they could probably be considered business partners. However, when they interacted normally, Wang Zhong felt that the two of them were more like friends, or rather, she was his close confidant?