ASER - Chapter 95
Chapter 95: Spoils of War
The crisis in Jinxiang Area had eased, and it was now a matter of who had obtained more resources.
Chen Ran and the other high-ranking officials treated Qu Jiangnan with great kindness and consideration, each appearing benevolent and guileless. However, Qu Jiangnan knew they were a pack of old foxes and didn't say much, merely exchanging a few pleasantries. She did, however, happen to see Chen Ran step out to make a phone call.
Chen Ran was contacting A'Diao, asking her where she was.
"Burying an urn."
A'Diao had originally intended to scatter the ashes, but she realized the wind direction on the cliff was wrong. If she scattered them, she'd end up with an ash-makeup look first. Forget it, she'd bury them.
Chen Ran: "???"
From Chen Ran +7777!
I was just asking, and you curse me?! Unfilial daughter!
Chen Ran wanted to ask more, but the call was disconnected from the other end.
Because another call was coming in.
Qu Jiangnan: "They're about to enter the underground caves. Your injuries should be mostly healed. Why haven't you come?"
This wasn't in line with this troublemaker's usual style of flapping her wings and stirring up trouble.
A'Diao, however, spoke truthfully, "Teacher, I'm busy burying an urn."
From Qu Jiangnan +44444!
Qu Jiangnan was quiet for a moment, her voice somewhat hoarse, and said with a hint of annoyance, "Still being mischievous?"
"No, it's the ashes of an old Daoist priest who raised me. He was killed by some gamblers, and his body had rotted. I cremated it and brought it back to bury while it was still... fresh."
Towards her homeroom teacher, whom she couldn't afford to offend, A'Diao was very tactful and explained in detail.
It didn't sound like a lie, Qu Jiangnan could tell. She frowned but ultimately didn't say much. "Bury him well. My condolences."
Truly concise.
After ending the call, A'Diao sighed and continued to grunt and puff as she dug a hole under a longan tree on the mountaintop. But soon, her phone chimed with incoming messages. One look, and A'Diao's face turned green.
Qu Jiangnan had sent her a collection of 9 Daoist magic + talisman basics + study packs.
???
Seriously, sending me some joss paper would have been better than sending this!
Harboring resentment towards Qu Jiangnan, A'Diao still finished burying the urn. She looked at the longan tree before her, patted it, and said, "Old thing, you managed to raise a sickly wretch like me. Use your specialty and properly ripen this withered, useless tree. When I have time in the future, I'll come back to pick longans. I'm off!"
With her back to the longan tree, she turned gracefully in the twilight glow of the evening, waved her hand, and considered it a farewell.
Her departing shadow stretched long, but she didn't look back.
As she was leaving Qishan, A'Diao suddenly remembered something. Piloting her aircraft through the dim light, she flew to the side door of the old house. Pinching her nose with slight disgust, she used a tentacle to rummage around inside. She had intended to take the books she had grown up reading as mementos, but... they were gone.
All the books inside had disappeared.
Huh?
A'Diao frowned. Robbed?
Someone came to this rundown place?
Toilet: "Hard to say. Everyone knows you got into Jinling Academy. It's possible someone suspected this old Daoist temple produced some kind of Spiritual Vessel that helped your cultivation. Some thieves would naturally come. But it's also possible some faction was digging into your background and took the stuff along the way."
Anything was possible, and there were no traces left to follow.
A'Diao could only give up.
Anyway, she hadn't found anything unusual about the Old Daoist Priest's body either.
Toilet: "Actually, you're not entirely sure, are you? Aren't you going to investigate further?"
A'Diao's expression was cold.
"I never do things beyond my current capabilities."
Regarding the Old Daoist Priest, there were no more than two possibilities.
1. He wasn't dead. That would be good. She couldn't even be bothered to investigate; she didn't care where he was hiding, whether he was "drinking the northwest wind" or plotting something.
2. He was dead. If the Cui Family did it, she had already taken revenge, and there was no need to pursue it further. If not, and there was a more secretive, unfathomable figure involved, then the fact that they cleaned up and concealed things meant they had no intention of escalating the matter to involve her. It wasn't aimed at her personally, which meant they were giving her time to develop. Why should she rush to her death?
A'Diao had a very open mindset. She quickly returned to the Chen family residence in Jinling and went to the Small Spirit Gate area, where she saw the Old Butler arranging things.
Huh, a basket of durians?
A'Diao casually asked, and the Old Butler replied stiffly, "The Old Madam asked about you, Third Miss. I mentioned there was a strong durian smell in your cultivation room, so she had me arrange this."
This old man looked calm, but he was actually disgusted to death.
On the surface, mocking her younger brother for doing elementary school homework in the Small Spirit Gate.
Secretly eating durian inside the Small Spirit Gate?
Question: Which one is nobler?
A'Diao felt greatly wronged. "Someone else gave those to me. It's not that I wanted to eat them."
Old Butler: "Then, do you want the durians or not?"
A'Diao: "..."
She still carried the basket of durians in with one hand.
The Old Butler's expression behind her became even more aggrieved: No, that basket of durians was for you to eat one a day, not for you to take them all in and eat them at once!!!
My Third Miss, you'll get "heatiness"!
How could A'Diao care about that? She hadn't planned to eat them all in one go either; she wasn't a pig.
However, since the smell was too strong and indeed unpleasant, she ate all the flesh and left the husks in the hallway of the cultivation room.
Toilet: "You're so unscrupulous."
A'Diao: "What? I'm doing this to master Mental Power. It's a necessary evil. Actually, I'm quite conflicted inside."
The "conflicted" A'Diao quickly opened a second durian and began organizing her spoils of war while eating.
However, she activated 101 to isolate the smell.
Currently, all the spoils of war were mainly concentrated in the Toilet's built-in storage space + Li Yuanshu's storage ring + the Spatial Spirit Vessel.
Actually, there was also the inheritance from Cui Liang and the two A-grade fighters, but she didn't plan to open it now. Mainly, she was afraid there might be items with special markings from that family inside. Even with 101 isolating electronic signals, she was still worried about leaks. At the very least, she had to wait until that family's people completely gave up their investigation of Jinling. Only then would she consider how to deal with it.
Different levels had different methods. She would rather overestimate her opponents than underestimate them.
A'Diao poured them all out in one go and then, together with Xiao Yuanbao and Sparrow, calculated their value.
Specifically, the gains could be divided into two parts.
From the two thousand Cui Family death warriors and remnants + the Cui Family resources controlled by Cui Yong: 6,000 first-grade spirit cores, 1,000 second-grade spirit cores, 400 third-grade spirit cores, 60 Spiritual Vessels (worth 8,000 energy points), 58 Forbidden Items, a pile of technological equipment + medicinal materials + combat resources (approximately worth 3 billion), a Medium Spirit Gate (worth 5,000 energy points), one Dark Gold Spine Wolf Set worth 3.5 billion, and the Forbidden Item Particle Ray worth 200 million.
From the Fierce Bandit Organization + Li Yuanshu's personal resources: 30,000 first-grade spirit cores, 3,000 second-grade spirit cores, 1,500 third-grade spirit cores, 45 Spiritual Vessels (worth 3,000 energy points), 32 Forbidden Items, a pile of technological equipment + medicinal materials + combat resources (approximately worth 1.5 billion), a mysterious Light Armor set, Li Yuanshu's dedicated staff, and two secret manuals (《Art of the Blood Bee》 + 《Heavenly Round Shield》).
Converting it, all spirit cores + Spiritual Vessels = 322,000 energy points. Most of the Spiritual Vessels were low-grade defective products, and the medium-grade ones weren't very effective either, making them meaningless. Keeping them was useless, so A'Diao planned to absorb them all later.
As for the equipment and medicinal materials, she either looked down on them or couldn't use them. The same applied to the total of 90 Forbidden Items. She had high standards; if she were to buy now, she would buy what was most suitable for herself. The specifications of these people's Forbidden Items were insufficient, so she listed them all with Huayao Bank for disposal. The total funds from selling these items were still unknown, but Sparrow and Xiao Yuanbao helped set prices based on market value and listed them. If all were sold, A'Diao would receive a total of 4.5 billion (from equipment, medicine, etc.) + 1.5 billion (from Forbidden Items).
These were all easy to handle. The difficult one was the Dark Gold Spine Wolf Set. A'Diao didn't know whether to keep it.
First, this thing belonged to Cui Yong. She couldn't use it openly; using it would expose her secret. She could only use it privately when doing bad deeds. But no matter what identity she used, it would easily be linked back, because in the entire Danzhou, probably fewer than five people had bought this set. Moreover, it was traded through an internal military merchant, making the pool of potential buyers even smaller. It would instantly make people think of Cui Yong, unless no one saw her use it.
Second, she felt that Li Yuanshu's Light Armor set seemed stronger.
At this moment, A'Diao was holding this set and having Sparrow help appraise it. After a while, Sparrow finally got the results by thoroughly checking Huayao Bank's commercial database.
"Master Diao Diao, this should be the Green Eagle Light Armor Set produced by Alchemy Mountain. Even Li Yuanshu's staff is part of the set. It sells for 5.8 billion. However, it's sold globally, and 300 sets have been sold so far. According to industry practice, sales records are confidential and not publicly disclosed; only the sales quantity data is provided."
From Alchemy Mountain?
A'Diao hesitated. Even though she currently had no conflict of interest with Alchemy Mountain and no direct relationship with Master Lu, she still had a persecution complex and was unwilling to take this risk.
What if the other party checked the sales records, found she wasn't among the buyers, but she did possess it, and Li Yuanshu was dead? Ultimately, some suspicion would fall on her.
It would be fine if Li Yuanshu had no one backing him. But as it happened, he had an even more mysterious background, one so powerful that he had to feign death to hide and monopolize resources.
Toilet: "You don't dare use the Spine Wolf Set because you're afraid the family from Kyoto will trace it to you. You don't dare use the Green Eagle Light Armor Set either, wary of the people behind Li Yuanshu. You're so pitiful."
Having amassed such a huge fortune, yet still so apprehensive, as if treading on thin ice.
A'Diao, however, didn't feel ashamed. Instead, she pondered deeply. "Stop with the sarcastic remarks. Those people are not to be trifled with. I've heard some Forbidden Masters can see through one's cultivation level and internal armor just by getting close. If I bind this set to my body, they'll take one look, and oh! I'll have given myself away! So, before the college entrance exam, I can't expose myself. Otherwise, why would I think the Academy would protect me?"
"Even if they were willing to protect me, could I fend off endless assassination attempts?"
"Only after the college entrance exam, when my strength has risen to another level, and after I enter that platform, various major powers will surely try to recruit me. Then I can choose a backer. That's what I call security."
Right now, she was nothing.
Toilet: "So you plan to sell them? But if you sell them and then buy similar sets, the depreciation cost will be at least a billion. Are you willing to part with that?"
Of course, she wasn't willing!
A'Diao thought it over and over, then suddenly had an idea. "I remember we talked about refining a spirit cluster into my life-bound item, which is you. And armor, to put it bluntly, is also hidden within the spirit cluster after binding. Look at my current cultivation level. After the Toilet's upgrade, do I have the ability to achieve this goal?"
The Toilet thought about it and agreed, "Yes, absolutely enough. After all, you've obtained too many energy points this time."
Let's do it!
A'Diao immediately absorbed all 322,000 energy points.
It took 50,000 energy points to go from level 6 to level 7, and 250,000 energy points to go from level 7 to level 8.
In other words, she directly leveled up to level 8.
Level: 8 (Current Energy Points 26500/500000, needs 473500 more energy points to reach level 9. Note: Level 7 provides 100 cubic meters of storage space. Level 8 can automatically absorb ambient Spiritual Energy to upgrade all exchanged skills by +1 level.)
Mental Power: 302,410.
Synchronized Spiritual Energy Release: 500 wisps.
Exchanged Skills:
1: Little Fists Pummel You to Death (lv11)
2: Eye Contact Sizzle (lv11)
3: Talisman Proficiency (lv3)
4: Talent Proficiency (lv2)
5: XXX Turn into a Pig (lv6)
And 101, 202, 303...
Exchangeable Skills:
1: "Unable to Control Emotions" Gift Package (Pervert-type skill, can randomly inflict a special state on the target's body, domineeringly and forcefully controlling them to produce corresponding words and actions. Exchange requires 1 million Mental Power, upgrade once for 500,000 Mental Power.)
2: Intermediate Curse Speechcraft Blind Box (Randomly awakens a speechcraft curse skill, content is as its name suggests. Exchange once requires 1 million Mental Power, upgrade once for 500,000 Mental Power.)
3: Body Armor Resistance (Passive skill, can use the Toilet's inherent power to permanently temper and enhance body armor. The longer the time, the stronger it becomes; the higher the Toilet's level, the stronger it becomes. Exchange requires 2 million Mental Power, upgrade once for 1 million Mental Power.)
4: C-Grade Aptitude Marrow Cleansing Formula (Exchange once for 2 million Mental Power)
5: Mental Power Will Cultivation Method Vol 1 (No exchange needed, can be directly imparted by the Toilet through enlightenment.)
This time, leveling up two grades at once, the newly added things were actually 2, 3, 4, and 5, because 1 was a leftover from level 6 that hadn't been exchanged.
So few? Why do I feel like I got shortchanged? And that speechcraft blind box is clearly a black hole. Where would she get the Mental Power to exchange for a gamble on luck?
What a rip-off!
Toilet: "Setting other things aside, the Mental Power Will Cultivation Method Vol 1 in point four is something you originally might only have been able to obtain after becoming a Forbidden Master. Now that you've gotten enough resources to reach level 8 ahead of time, it means you can strengthen your will before becoming a Forbidden Master. I don't need to elaborate on the benefits of that, do I?"
A'Diao was thoughtful. "Is will directly related to that illusionary realm?"
Toilet: "Yes. For Mind Masters, will is more important than Spirit Power; it determines their comprehension and upper limits. If understood in terms of data, a 1-point increase in will is greater than a 1000-point increase in Spirit Power. However, its source is related to the spiritual body. The spiritual body is fixed, but will can be strengthened through tempering and training. But the benefit of this Mental Power Will Cultivation Method Vol 1 for you is that your aptitude is damaged and hidden. Cultivating it can gradually cleanse and restore your full aptitude, including your spiritual body."
A'Diao: "I'm of the Pervert-type. The impact on me shouldn't be as obvious as for the Mind-type, but it did indeed give me this thing... Considering the skills I've obtained before, within the Pervert-type, do I belong to the most special curse/resentment power talent category? Because it happens to rely heavily on will."
Toilet: "Correct."
It's good that the host is a smart person. It doesn't need to popularize and teach; she figured it out herself.
A'Diao understood now. So this first volume was the biggest gain from leveling up two grades.
Will? It would probably also significantly enhance curse-type skills like "Turn into a Pig."
Thinking about it... suddenly felt it wasn't very moral, but it was so exciting! Hahahaha!
Get instant access to all the chapters now.
Comments
Post a Comment