Eternal Life: Talent Grows with Age

"I think this Catalytic Treasure Liquid should come in handy for you, don’t you agree?" Pretty soon, Li Nangua walked over, holding the exchange list in her hands.

It was obvious she was in a good mood—who knew if it was from chatting with Gu Chan or from finding out about the Catalytic Treasure Liquid.

"This stuff isn’t all that useful." Lu Chang’sheng put the list away.

But Li Nangua just kept smiling at him. After a long moment, Lu Chang’sheng finally relented, "Alright, it’s got some uses, but you should spend your contribution points on things that help you."

"We’re a team, aren’t we?" Li Nangua shot him a glare, then told someone to go get the Catalytic Treasure Liquid she wanted to exchange for.

Soon, someone delivered two jade bottles of Catalytic Treasure Liquid.

Lu Chang’sheng knew that this time, Li Nangua had earned quite a bit more demon hunting contribution than he had—at least 110 points or so.

It wasn’t a ton, really. As far as he knew, Luo Dong and a couple others had close to 130 demon hunting contribution over the past three days.

And keep in mind, Luo Dong was also seventh stage Qi Cultivation.

Of course, part of the gap was because Lu Chang’sheng had purposely held back while demon hunting; he hadn’t even let loose his puppet beast, the Black Water Profound Snake.

"If you actually want to fully catalyze and refine the Nether Beast Remains, this much Catalytic Treasure Liquid isn’t going to cut it."

After heading back, Lu Chang’sheng tried dripping a single drop of the treasure liquid onto the Nether Beast Remains; it only melted a tiny bit.

Judging by his estimate, to completely liquefy over a thousand pounds of Nether Beast Remains, he’d need at least twenty jade bottles of the stuff.

"Twenty jade bottles of Catalytic Treasure Liquid... If I go all in on demon hunting, I could probably earn that in just over ten days. Add Nangua’s share, and we might do it in under a week."

Thinking that, Lu Chang’sheng glanced up at the Light Curtain Panel.

His Puppetry Technique was only five days away from perfection.

Ever since he got the Puppetry Technique, he’d rarely slacked off on practice. Looking over all the magic he’d learned, puppetry was hands-down his strongest art, so there was no way he’d take it lightly.

Now, with Platinum Immortal City in crisis, the Puppetry Technique mattered more than ever.

······

In a blink, it was already late at night. The group filed out of their respective dwellings, heads down as they flew toward the section of the city wall each of them was assigned to guard.

Lu Chang’sheng glanced around. Everyone looked about the same as before. With a hundred or so contribution points, you couldn’t really exchange for anything great. For late-stage Qi Cultivators like them, regular stuff was basically useless.

As they passed by Lu Chang’sheng, everyone greeted him and Li Nangua warmly.

Luo Dong was the friendliest of all.

Fang Shan’s eyes carried a hint of amusement as he pointed out why Luo Dong’s attitude had changed so much.

"Luo Dong went out for a bit and met up with a few cultivators from the West Gate Imperial Court. Probably working some backdoor deal."

"I heard those cultivators he was trading with even asked about you—found out you had ties to the Gu Family. No wonder they’re jealous."

The problem isn’t scarcity, it’s inequality.

To other cultivators, getting that kind of benefit was enviable. And for someone like Luo Dong, who got to experience it, he knew just how lucky he was.

"These past few days, the attacks from West Gate and North Gate have been a lot fiercer than here. Especially West Gate—yesterday, I heard a Foundation Establishment class monster appeared, but it didn’t even get close before one of the Foundation Establishment seniors stationed there took it out."

Lu Chang’sheng nodded; the real frontlines were at West Gate, with elders from Supreme Profound Sect like Du Xuan and Foundation Establishment cultivators from the Gu Family holding the line there.

Lots of cultivators envied Lu Chang’sheng’s post—not everyone was so eager to face a Foundation Establishment monster head-on.

As for why the East Gate didn’t have folks like them on guard, but was instead staffed by Gu Family cultivators—

It was pretty obvious Gu Family was picking favorites with their assignments. But the power gap was so big that, even if all the other cultivators were pissed, nobody dared say a thing. They just counted on racking up their own demon hunting contribution.

"We still need to be careful," Lu Chang’sheng cautioned.

Fang Shan nodded.

The Supreme Profound Sect wasn’t messing around with their deployments here. If things were as light as the previous few days, they wouldn’t have mobilized this much force.

Sure enough, just past midnight, demon wind and dark clouds kicked up in the distance again—clear proof that way more monsters were gathering than last time.

The battle broke out again, and this time it dragged on even longer. One monster after another charged in from the far reaches, desperate to get over the city wall.

But Qi Cultivators holding the line quickly drove them back.

This time, Lu Chang’sheng didn’t hold back—he unleashed the Black Water Profound Snake, which dropped down below the wall. With a single swipe of its tail, a handful of monsters went flying, exploding into clouds of blood mist.

The Black Water Profound Snake slithered around for a bit; as its belly scales opened and closed, it scooped up the corpses of monsters from the ground and trapped them beneath its plates.

Still, its massive size made it pretty clumsy in a fight like this. While it crushed monsters left and right, it also couldn’t avoid taking some hits itself.

It stung a little—Puppet Beasts had great defense, but repeated heavy blows would still damage them. He’d have to spend spirit stones on repairs afterward for sure.

That was exactly why he hadn’t taken it out in the last fight.

A day later, a Foundation Establishment class monster that had been hiding behind a bloody eagle, biding its time, finally lost patience. It shot toward the city wall like a streak of black light. Lu Chang’sheng and the others panicked and fell back; at the same time, a cold snort came from the Imperial Garden, and the Foundation Establishment cultivator stationed there erupted with spiritual light, soaring into the air to clash with the monster mid-flight.