LWGP - Chapter 236
Chapter 236: Elemental Body
The System had always felt that Wang Jiu was a rather magnanimous person. Aside from the bit of torment she'd inflicted on Yang Yu's group early on, she had always been direct with people. Even when Prince Xingyun repeatedly tortured her, she didn't retaliate by torturing him twice as much.
Kill him, take the money, and leave. Not another word was spoken.
She was indeed a villain, but one who saved on lines.
Wang Jiu didn't use Prince Xingyun's top-tier starship directly, as that would attract the attention of the Heiyan Empire's Star Navigation Bureau. She went to a nearby residence, entered a bedroom, and killed the three-hundred-jin noble slave owner inside. (The slave owner was too high-profile, not only wealthy but unscrupulously so, and was constantly cursed online. Many people knew his address.) She took on his appearance, removed one of his fingers, and created a Spirit Body to cover her own finger, using the fingerprint to control the man's starship and leave the Heiyan capital.
The fat slave owner wasn't a major figure, but he had some connections. Because slave owners were always busy, he had bribed a group of people at the Star Navigation Bureau, making his entry and exit inspections exceptionally simple.
The next morning, the people of the Heiyan Dynasty discovered the situation and reported it. The Heiyan authorities came to investigate.
For a time, they couldn't determine whether Prince Xingyun had been killed or had simply left, until they discovered that the nearby fat slave owner was also dead.
Either Prince Xingyun had killed the fatty and used his identity to escape, or the person who killed Prince Xingyun had also killed the fatty to escape.
The Female Emperor of the Heiyan Empire, Mo Ran, flipped through the on-site video recording on her light brain. After a moment of silence, a strange light flowed through her pupils. Far away in Prince Xingyun's bedroom, certain metals melted into a liquid stream, flowed through space into her light brain, and then out of the light brain into Mo Ran's hand.
If Wang Jiu had seen this move, she would have been amazed by its terror.
Spatial travel, liquid metal control, with a touch of time-rewinding prophecy—incredibly impressive!
After the metal reassembled, its smooth surface faintly reflected a second person.
Due to the steam, the person was indistinct, but it was vaguely a woman.
Unfortunately, there was no sound.
"He was really killed! But for Xingyun to be killed instantly, this person must have an average attribute of over 700,000, right?"
The high-ranking officials of the Heiyan Empire were shocked and uncertain, but Mo Ran dismissed the metal and said flatly, "Who killed him isn't important. What's real is that Xing Yao will use this to start a war."
"If Xingyao does that, is our Heiyan Empire afraid of them?"
Seeing the Female Emperor's silence, the high-ranking officials dared not speak further and quietly retreated.
Mo Ran looked into the distance, her eyes dark.
From Xingyao's series of actions after Prince Xingyun fled, she had already deduced that Xing Yao had deliberately let Prince Xingyun escape to the Heiyan Empire.
To put it bluntly, the Heiyan Empire's overall strength was slightly weaker than Xingyao's. And Xingyao had recently used Prince Xingyun's actions to sweep away all internal threats, unifying its royal power to an extreme degree. Compared to her Heiyan Empire, their advantage had grown.
But it wasn't enough to make Xing Yao so aggressive.
What trump card did he have?
Could it be… the Taihuang Empire had reached an agreement with Xingyao?
And then there was Desolate Ridge Star. The last White Witch ruin was obtained by Xingyao. The importance of these ruins was evident from how that Suo Nu inherited the White Witch spirit arts and became the top arcanist of the younger generation in the three empires.
The origin of this new ruin was still unknown, but the commotion it caused was much greater than the last one. If Xingyao obtained it as well…
Mo Ran lowered her eyes.
Alone, when no one was around.
The lights in the hall were soft. The courtyard outside had no flowers or grass, only wide, neat dark green stone slabs, a cold and deep pool of water, a solitary blooming lotus, and a green cypress leaning alone against the wall, its canopy restrained. The night reflected off it, casting a painting on the ground and a shadow on the wall.
An empty body, a silent, sealed world.
This was the world of a supreme expert.
If that study was Xing Yao's inner world, then this courtyard was the boundary of Mo Ran's soul.
The only Female Emperor of the Fourth Spacetime was stern and cold, but it could not suppress her burning, magnificent beauty—a dangerous beauty like a spider lily.
Her beauty surpassed her imperial aura.
In the silence, she formed a seal, her fingertips touching the cinnabar mark on her brow. A moment later, a thread of mental power, like a blood-infused ink-feathered butterfly, brilliantly emerged. It fluttered and danced, landing on the lotus before merging with it.
The flower became vivid, gaining spirituality.
It flew into the vast sky, destined to startle some distant sea.
A night later, Wang Jiu was already outside the Heiyan Empire's territory. After leaving their Star Navigation Bureau's detection range, she switched to Prince Xingyun's top-tier starship, entered the vast universe, and flew towards Desolate Ridge Star.
The journey would take about half a month. It was on autopilot, so Wang Jiu didn't need to watch it constantly.
Right now, she was sitting cross-legged in the training room. Since coming to the Fourth Spacetime, her gains had been sporadic. First, the half-legendary Zerg Matriarch, then the assets stripped from the four little kings. But none of that compared to Prince Xingyun's inheritance.
The Zerg Matriarch had dropped half-legendary clothes and pants for Wang Jiu, as well as a half-legendary growth ring and a fragment of the Zerg's Order Book, Reproduction.
This was from the Chaos system. Wang Jiu had always been a firm believer in the Evil Order. She had recently mixed in a Light Order skill, Ice Sealed Throne, because the Book of Immortality came from the Undead Race, and the direct lineage of the Undead was the Icebound Undead. Wang Jiu felt there was a connection, so she learned it.
This racial skill, Reproduction, could actually be used on her Spirit Bodies to help them regenerate… or it could be used with the Book of Immortality.
The reproduction of life was, in a sense, another form of immortality.
But Wang Jiu considered that it was specific to the Zerg. For her Spirit Bodies, she preferred the Undead Race because their genetic hierarchy was higher than the Zerg's. If she went down the path of racial Reproduction, her Spirit Bodies would have to be primarily Zerg-based in the future.
In the Fourth Spacetime, the Zerg were the current expansion, but Wang Jiu knew she had to return to the Third Spacetime, which would make things difficult. So she didn't learn it, planning to trade it for something she wanted later.
Looking at the loot from the four little kings, it was mostly Purple Gold-grade resources. There wasn't a single half-legendary item or piece of equipment.
System: "You think they're you?"
Since becoming a player, Wang Jiu's resources had always been a tier above her average attribute level, which was why she grew so fast.
And now she could equip a full set of half-legendary gear—because that fellow Prince Xingyun had a complete set on him.
It might not have been resources he got from Purple Gold bosses, but as an imperial prince, his resources were immense. He had 3.5 billion gold coins alone, and his other mid-to-high-tier resources were twenty to thirty times what Wang Jiu had.
However, his top-tier resources weren't much better than Wang Jiu's.
Three half-legendary badges, fifteen Purple Gold badges, and three complete Order Books.
Evil, Elemental, and Dark.
Wang Jiu used the Evil and Dark ones. The Elemental Order was a popular Order Book from the Chaos Order, so she kept it.
"Order Books are so rare. Even Prince Xingyun only had this many, with none in stock." Wang Jiu's biggest dream was to get rich off Order Books, but things didn't go as planned.
System: "You got three complete ones at once, what more do you want? But you really know how to pick your targets for murder and robbery."
This Prince Xingyun was a super fat sheep.
Adding the 400 million gold from the great slave owner and the 100 million invested by Xing Yao, Wang Jiu now had 4 billion gold coins.
She frantically ordered mecha and equipped the half-legendary set. After equipping the badges and all other equippable or replaceable gear, she started consuming her stock of Strengthening Stones, Upgrade Scrolls, and other resources.
Strengthening, upgrading.
A massive amount of resources was consumed like crazy.
Wang Jiu spent a whole day smashing resources, getting all her badges and equipment to +9. Her rings and badges were also all upgraded to half-legendary.
Getting to +10 was too hard. If she reached +10, it would directly upgrade to legendary, but Wang Jiu knew the difficulty was too high because her equipment's base level was too high.
Even by spamming top-grade Strengthening Stones, the upgrade probability was close to 0.
The only possibility was to use other alchemy materials to supplement top-grade Strengthening Stones for enhancement. But she had researched it and knew the resource investment was extremely terrifying. All her current resources wouldn't be nearly enough, so she had to put it aside for now.
But this was still easier than getting legendary items directly. If she had to collect them, when would she ever get a full legendary set?
Encounter a legendary boss?
System: "Not impossible. In that regard, your luck has always been pretty good."
How cutting.
Wang Jiu ignored it. Her average attribute was now 250,000. With her mecha on, it jumped to 500,000.
If she used her buffs… she could unleash nearly a million in average attribute-level damage for a certain period.
But an expert with a million average attribute could directly nullify her buffs, making it impossible to fight. However, she could crush people with 600,000-700,000 average attributes, because they wouldn't be able to bypass or weaken her defenses, given the many Order Books she possessed.
System: "The resources you've accumulated can be converted into over a hundred million Goblin Trader points. With such vast resources, it's more than enough to save the Old Lady. Even recreating a body for her would cost ten million points at most. What do you plan to do with the rest?"
Wang Jiu: "I don't know."
The System saw her starting to mentally control the creation of Spirit Bodies and assumed she was going to spend the points on that, so it didn't ask further. But Wang Jiu was also looking through the Primordial Spirit Calendar.
These past few days, she had been preparing to kill Prince Xingyun and was a bit wary of this Primordial Spirit Calendar, so she had left it alone for a few days. Now that she was at her peak, was she ready to open it?
Her hands covered both sides of the book. Just as she was about to open it, she froze, as if talking to herself: "Yo, so eager, huh? There isn't a wisp of your soul left inside, is there?"
"If so, I'll make a point not to open it."
A burning sensation suddenly appeared on her back, painful, like retaliation. But Wang Jiu just sneered, cruel and evil, and coolly spat out three words.
"Damn dog."
The news of Prince Xingyun's death quickly reached Xingyao. The two empires went to war, but Saling was more concerned about something else.
"She's gone?" Xing Yao learned of Wang Jiu's departure, looking thoughtful. "Did she leave you anything?"
Saling lowered her eyes. "She left me a note."
She could have sent an email or a private message, but this person insisted on a handwritten note.
"Let me see." After saying this, Xing Yao noticed Saling's hesitation. "What, reluctant?"
Saling glanced at the emperor and handed over the note.
Xing Yao took the note and was stunned for a moment.
—Thanks for the care. I'm leaving. By the way, you're cuter than that father and son duo.
Is she throwing shade?
That wasn't your attitude when you were here in person.
Xing Yao, who had just generously invested 100 million gold coins, maintained a calm expression and handed it back.
"Xingyun was killed. It's nine-tenths likely related to her. She has a way to evade insight and scanners? Quite impressive."
Being two-faced was also quite impressive.
Saling, unaware of the emperor's inner thoughts, asked, "Should we investigate?"
Xing Yao: "No need. The most important things right now are the other three matters."
1, The war with the Heiyan Empire.
2, The discovery by the Star Navigation Bureau.
3, The strange swarm of cockroaches that suddenly appeared on the border battlefield, slaughtered, then burrowed underground and vanished without a trace, which is somewhat unsettling.
"The anomaly on Desolate Ridge Star probably means a ruin is about to appear." Xing Yao turned and looked into the distance.
"Perhaps this war will be fought on Desolate Ridge Star."
Half a month later, outside the ring of celestial debris surrounding Desolate Ridge Star. The fragments, large and small, seemed to move slowly but had terrifying impact force. Their material properties were special; they exploded upon contact with any energy body.
So whether it was a starship or a living being, as long as you had energy, one touch and… boom!
Therefore, the celestial debris cloud of Desolate Ridge Star had a rather domineering name in the Fourth Spacetime—the Don't-Touch-Me Nebula.
Wang Jiu stood in front of the large screen in the control room, observing the flow of the celestial debris. What made a top-tier starship?
It was fast, had a thick and durable hull, and powerful weapons. But its AI was brilliant. It would calculate the safest and most optimal route for you.
For example, right now, its proposed plan was to wait for a gap to appear in the debris cloud before entering. This maximized the safety factor.
Wang Jiu accepted its suggestion and was waiting. But she also saw a notification from the ship's system: a small, hidden red dot appeared on the screen, noting that the other party had activated a cloaking device and was hiding at certain spatial coordinates.
By her calculations, it was roughly diagonally behind her.
Hmm? Another ship was also heading to Desolate Ridge Star?
Wang Jiu's first reaction was that the Star Navigation Bureaus of the three empires had made a discovery and sent a ship to investigate.
But deliberately hiding behind her… she wondered about their motive.
An hour later, the celestial debris, drifting like old grandpas, finally revealed a rift large enough for three starships.
Wang Jiu immediately engaged maximum speed and shot through.
Her speed was like tearing through space. The slow-moving debris on either side vanished quickly. Wang Jiu didn't consider herself a genius pilot. She had plundered Prince Xingyun's inheritance specifically for his top-tier starship and its advanced AI. Its skills were much better than hers, so she sat in her chair, legs crossed, elegantly sipping water.
And diagonally behind her ship, the cloaked starship followed.
The people inside the ship didn't say anything, because they had already made their decision.
First, they determined the ship ahead belonged to Xingyao.
It must be destroyed!
Hide first, then attack after entering the debris rift. The target would inevitably hit the celestial debris on the side and explode.
"Remember to keep your distance and activate the shields. Don't get caught in the shockwave of their explosion and get knocked into the debris cloud…"
"Yes, sir."
"Alright, prepare."
The pilot was locking onto the ship ahead when the system suddenly warned: You have been targeted. Leave immediately, immediately…
Before it could finish, a beam of light pierced the void from ahead.
Boom!
A single shot from the top-tier starship's rear spirit light cannon hit its mark instantly. The thousands of people on the other ship were horrified. Before they could even react, they felt the ship shake violently from the impact and scrape against the celestial debris at the edge.
And then… there was no 'and then'.
As Wang Jiu ate a piece of fruit, she coldly observed the explosion intensity measured by the system.
"So powerful. No wonder it's listed as a dangerous restricted zone."
Her mailbox was constantly receiving inheritance letters from the kills. Oh, they were indeed from the Star Navigation Bureau and the military. Mostly related resources.
"This can also reduce HP?" Wang Jiu was a bit surprised.
System: "Duh. The destructive power of a high-energy explosion in space is of course going to reduce HP. It's on a higher level than your top-tier skills."
High-energy?
Wang Jiu glanced at the ubiquitous celestial debris outside the window, lost in thought.
As for how many people died or which empire they belonged to, she didn't mention it at all. She just took a couple of bites of her fruit and put it down.
"The food in this Fourth Spacetime is terrible. I kind of miss Ah Shu," Wang Jiu said melancholically, propping her cheek on her hand.
System: "…"
You've been here for a while, and you've talked to Qing He so many times without once asking about Wang Shu and the others. But eating a piece of fruit reminds you of him.
Rotten to the core.
An hour later, hum, the starship finally passed through the most dangerous nebula zone, but a red light suddenly flashed.
"Warning, warning. Elemental energy on the planet ahead is in turmoil, with complex attributes. To prevent the ship's energy combustion from triggering the elemental order, do you wish to terminate starship flight?"
Wang Jiu wasn't a native of the Fourth Spacetime, after all. Her understanding of energy was originally at the level of the Third Spacetime's civilization. But her frantic studying in the Fourth Spacetime had paid off. Even if she wasn't a hardcore PhD-level intellectual like Saling, she at least had a basic understanding and respected this spacetime's scientific and cultural level. So, as soon as the ship warned her, she decisively recalled it and descended through the atmosphere in her mecha.
Upon entering Desolate Ridge Star, Wang Jiu gained a common understanding of the planet's chaotic elemental energy—it was so chaotic that even the energy inside her body was running rampant!
This raised a question. Isn't it better for the ambient energy to be stronger? Like in cultivation novels, where abundant spirit energy means faster cultivation. Why was it that now, with Desolate Ridge Star's elemental energy being so strong, it was actually a bad thing?
Of course it was bad. Too much of a good thing.
The elemental energy was too strong, so strong that it formed its own system and was no longer controllable by living beings. If the elements within a living being could not contend with it or were not strong enough, using arts would result in a backlash from the elemental energy.
At the very least, Wang Jiu didn't dare use her Spirit Power while falling now. The energy required for flight was too great and would attract the elements' attention. She opted for a natural fall, only taking out a paraglider item mid-air to glide for a distance, choosing to land in a lake to reduce the impact.
But even so, the water splashed violently, creating significant waves.
Underwater, as soon as Wang Jiu entered the water, she felt her legs being entangled, dragged down by an invisible restraint. And when she looked down, she could see a blue ball of light rushing towards her. A water elemental body?!
Wang Jiu frowned but didn't resist, letting it enter her body. When she sensed it directly extracting her Spirit Power, she acted. She used a skill to expel it. After the water elemental body left her, she slashed it with her blade.
Slashing it was useless. It merged directly into the water, re-forming after falling downwards.
This was the terror of an elemental body.
Wang Jiu watched it re-form with cold eyes. After reaching the ground, she shook off the water droplets.
System: "Elemental bodies are already showing up. This place is too troublesome. Over time, the elemental bodies will get stronger, and an Elemental King might appear."
An Elemental King was much more terrifying than a typical King-level boss. If the surrounding environment matched its elemental attribute, it was essentially immortal.
"No wonder all life is gone. Their energy was probably devoured by these elemental bodies."
She picked up a piece of skin with her blade, then flicked it away.
Wang Jiu, of course, knew how troublesome it was and that time was tight. She immediately started using a high-grade scanner bought in the Fourth Spacetime to search for the structure of the ley lines.
Desolate Ridge Star was too big, making the search difficult. Each scan consumed mental power, and she had to constantly deal with various elemental bodies popping up everywhere.
But Wang Jiu was prepared to pay the price from the start.
While she was racing against time to search Desolate Ridge Star, the three major empires were reacting.
Xingyao: The Taihuang's advance starship had an accident? The Heiyan did it?
Taihuang: It must have been the Heiyan!
Heiyan: The Taihuang has always been despicable. A self-inflicted wound to frame us? After colluding with Xingyao, they find a convenient excuse to slander our Heiyan Empire?
Regardless of who did it, the three empires finally went to war.
After her 1008th search, Wang Jiu finally found a mountain range that perfectly matched. This planet had no advanced civilization, so the mountain range had no name. But seeing its green mountains and white snow intertwined, she decided to call it the Green Snow Mountain Range for now.
Wang Jiu entered the Green Snow Mountain Range, searching for traces of the Bloodthirsty Beast. She found it strange. According to her previous predictions, since the Bloodthirsty Beast could emerge from the Pioneer Instance, it must have manifested. But if the manifested dungeon was in the Green Snow Mountain Range, its tracks should be obvious.
At the very least, the mobs should be common. But perhaps because of the elemental energy turmoil, all the mobs were gone.
"If it manifested, the entire dungeon would have come with it, right?"
System: "Yes."
Wang Jiu was thoughtful. The Bloodthirsty Beast was a beast of the tiger family. In the Old Lady's memory of the disaster, she could see other mobs, mostly of the same kind. And she had personally experienced the attack method of elemental bodies: they lock onto the energy in her body, transform into elements to enter her, devour the energy, and destroy the energy structure within the living being. Since the energy of most living beings, i.e., Spirit Power, was basically integrated with their flesh and blood, destroying it was equivalent to destroying their flesh and blood. So when it extracted and plundered all the energy and left, only skin and rotten flesh would remain.
In that case, she should be seeing a lot of skins.
"From the elemental energy data I've observed, its index would have reached the level to form elemental bodies within this past week at the earliest. The decomposition of skin couldn't be completed in a week."
Which meant…
"This damn planet was probably visited by someone a long time ago."
To the extent that the manifested dungeon was dealt with directly, leaving few traces.
But she could indeed pinpoint the Bloodthirsty Beast's existence.
Finding it strange, Wang Jiu continued to search deeper into the mountain range. She also took out a top-tier item—one that could detect the existence of dungeons, whether they currently existed or once existed.
Don't ask where it came from. Money can buy anything.
Finally, guided by the item's compass, Wang Jiu found traces of a manifested dungeon's vortex in a winding canyon.
Grass had grown over the traces. Wang Jiu judged the time based on the growth period of the grass species.
"27 days ago?"
Twirling a slender, tender green blade of grass between her fingers, Wang Jiu's eyes suddenly narrowed. She casually flicked out a blade of light, which smashed into the air in front of her.
The sound of shattering glass came from nowhere. Then, an illusory barrier was broken, and she saw the gate of an ancient monastery.
"How interesting. They clearly found the manifested dungeon and cleared out the minions, but didn't fully conquer it, and even tried to hide it."
Under what circumstances would an uncleared dungeon bring more benefits than a fully conquered one?
Either they couldn't beat it, or they were raising something inside.
Wang Jiu dismissed the former and settled on the latter. After a moment of thought, she stepped inside.
The vast monastery had a sense of twilight decay. The light was dim, the ground covered in dust and withered leaves. When the wind blew, it rustled. There were no other sounds, only the wind sweeping the fallen leaves across the ground, rustling in time with Wang Jiu's footsteps.
Step by step, Wang Jiu walked into the vast hall, blade in hand. As she passed a side door, she saw a patch of dark, bloody mess on the ground ahead. It had been over twenty days, and the blood had long since dried. But a piece seemed to have been carved out, and very recently at that.
Someone's here!
Wang Jiu immediately retreated. A sword edge, carrying a bloodthirsty aura, instantly appeared in the space and swept past her throat. The sharp sword qi extended, and even though Wang Jiu had retreated, it continued to spread towards her like a plague along the veins of space, endlessly.
Fortunately, a barrier popped up, blocking it for a moment. But it climbed and wrapped around the entire barrier, hissing like a gas, and in an instant, it corroded the barrier and penetrated!
Hmm? From a sword edge to sword qi, from sword qi to corrosive poison gas. A triple manipulation, three transformations. Such control was terrifying.
Weng, Wang Jiu drew her blade.
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