Chapter 175 - 174
Several days had passed since the start of the Void Ascension Battlefield. Deep within a narrow, winding ravine that shielded him from the ever-present silver twilight above, Lin Yuan remained perfectly motionless. He had settled into a flawless, almost suffocating rhythm.
By fusing the Great Tortoise Breath Technique with the spatial slippage of his Immortal Cloud Step, he had flattened his aura down to something barely distinguishable from the surrounding stone.
Hovering just above his collarbone, visible only to himself, was his Dao Token.
His count was exactly one. He had accumulated zero additional tokens.
However, more importantly, he had managed to hold on to the single token he started with. Several days into the preliminary round, that seemingly insignificant achievement had already placed him ahead of a surprising number of nominees who had charged into the battlefield with reckless confidence, only to pay for it with broken bones, and shattered pride.
Then, a voice suddenly boomed deep within his Sea of Consciousness.
"I’m sorry, but I really couldn’t help but notice," a clear, chiming voice echoed. Ling Xi, the nine-tailed sword spirit, materialized in his mind, sitting cross-legged with her fluffy white tails twitching in boredom. "You have literally just been watching. For days. We’ve drifted past at least thirty fights, and you haven’t engaged a single person. Not one! "
Patience, Ling Xi, Lin Yuan replied through his divine sense, his tone entirely devoid of apology.
"Patience is for old men fishing in empty ponds!" she huffed, crossing her tiny arms. "Shouldn’t we be out there subjugating these arrogant brats?"
I am only at the Early Stage of Spirit Severing, Lin Yuan implied, his reasoning remaining as calm and absolute as ever. This battlefield contains experts who have reached the pinnacle of their Dao Resolve, with some even standing at the Half-Step Soul Transformation realm. If I act recklessly now, my options will be severely limited by my current cultivation. I simply do not possess the overwhelming strength needed to confront any of them head-on.
I need leverage.
I need an opening.
Ling Xi opened her mouth to argue, then closed it, her fox ears drooping slightly. "Fine. Be reasonable and boring."
Lin Yuan cut the mental connection, his deep purple eyes scanning the darkening ravine. Dusk in the pocket realm merely meant that the silver sky overhead gradually shifted into the color of bruised iron.
Suddenly, Lin Yuan froze.
A faint, disordered ripple of spiritual Qi brushed against the edge of his perception.
Someone was nearby.
Lin Yuan did not move immediately. Instead, he carefully extended a thread of divine sense, sweeping across a ten-mile radius surrounding the ravine. His perception passed over the cliff faces, probed the subterranean caverns, and swept through the empty air above. There were no tracking arrays. No hidden formations. No signs of an ambush waiting to spring.
There was only one isolated presence, deliberately concealing its aura beneath a rocky overhang.
Satisfied that the area was clear, Lin Yuan allowed the Immortal Cloud Step to carry him silently down the ravine.
His figure drifted toward the overhang, his boots touching the loose gravel without making the slightest sound.
Sitting cross-legged in the dirt, clutching a defensive talisman in each hand, was Fu Lang. The fatty cultivator from the Fu Province had his aura suppressed, but it was noticeably less refined than Lin Yuan’s own effort; to a Spirit Severing expert, Fu Lang was practically radiating a beacon of nervous, jittery energy.
When Lin Yuan’s tall shadow finally fell across the overhang’s entrance, cutting off the dim light, Fu Lang violently flinched.
"Ah—!" Fu Lang yelped, his hand snapping toward a weapon at his hip.
He scrambled backward, raising a talisman, before his eyes fully adjusted to the gloom and recognition dawned on his round face.
"Oh. It’s you."
Fu Lang sagged back against the cold rock wall, exhaling so hard his cheeks fluttered. He kept one hand pressed briefly over his own chest, trying to slow his galloping heart.
"You scared the whole rest of my lifespan off me just now, you know that, Brother Lin?" Fu Lang groaned, wiping a thick layer of cold sweat from his forehead. "I thought Chu Kuang’s dogs had finally sniffed me out."
Lin Yuan lowered himself to sit at the edge of the overhang. He kept his posture relaxed, but he kept half his attention firmly fixed on the ravine beyond.
"His dogs?" Lin Yuan asked, his voice a quiet rumble.
"The Chu Province delegation," Fu Lang shuddered, adjusting his tight robes. "They’ve concentrated their might in this quadrant. They aren’t even hunting individually; they’re sweeping the canyons, picking people up in groups."
Fu Lang let out a bitter, exhausted sigh. "I was moving with a group of cultivators from Golden Diting Province. You know how it is. Safety in numbers for us Lower Division scum. We were doing fine, staying together and avoiding trouble. Then, out of nowhere, one of Chu Kuang’s lieutenants appeared. An absolute monster at the Early Stage Spirit Severing realm."
His expression tightened at the memory.
"He didn’t even draw his weapon. He simply released his Dao Intent and captured all four Golden Diting disciples alive. I only managed to escape because I detonated three of my highest-grade smoke arrays and ran until my lungs felt like they were going to tear apart."
Lin Yuan looked at the rotund cultivator. "You are lucky to have survived this long, Fu Lang. Your aura concealment is poorly refined. If someone from the Chu Province had genuinely wanted to find you, they could have tracked you down with little effort and taken your tokens."
Lin Yuan paused. He had originally intended to dismiss it as simple negligence. Perhaps the Chu cultivators had considered Fu Lang too insignificant to bother with because he came from a Lower Division province. But the thought suddenly struck him as wrong.
Golden Diting Province is also a Lower Division province.
His eyes narrowed.
"Fu Lang," Lin Yuan asked, his tone sharpening slightly. "How many tokens do you currently have?"
"Six." Fu Lang puffed out his chest with a trace of pride.
Six tokens.
That was not an insignificant number, especially several days into the battlefield. It was more than enough to make him worth pursuing if the Chu Province was solely hunting for tokens.
"So," Lin Yuan reasoned aloud, "you possess six tokens. Your concealment is poor. Yet, an Early-Stage Spirit Severing cultivator from the Chu Province ambushed your group, explicitly captured the four Golden Diting cultivators, and allowed a man with six tokens to escape with barely a scratch?"
Fu Lang blinked.
The pride on his face gradually disappeared.
"When you put it that way..."
"It becomes strange."
Fu Lang swallowed.
"It implies," Lin Yuan continued, his eyes narrowing into cold, calculating slits, "that the Chu Province is not concentrating their forces in this quadrant solely for tokens. They are here for another reason as well. And the fact that you escaped their ambush with your tokens intact tells me that whatever that reason is, it has nothing to do with you."
Lin Yuan looked at the dark stone of the ravine. "Everything falls on the Golden Diting Province. What is Chu Kuang plotting?"
Lin Yuan turned back to Fu Lang. "Is there a large concentration of Golden Diting cultivators in this area?"
Fu Lang nodded rapidly, his own mind beginning to spin as he saw the puzzle pieces clicking together. "Yes! That’s exactly why I joined them. They are operating as a massive group, exploring the various regions of the battlefield and gathering tokens along the way. Unlike the rest of us, who are essentially caught in a free-for-all to secure the position of Participating General for our respective provinces, I believe Golden Diting Province has a much more unified strategy."
His expression grew serious.
"They are trying to claim the Ascension Clause."
Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow. "You believe?"
"It’s well known from the ranking panel that one of them already has a significant number of tokens. He’s probably their chosen Participating General, and he already holds all of their starting tokens," Fu Lang explained, gesturing as he spoke. "The rest of the disciples are acting as scavengers, searching the battlefield for more tokens and bringing them directly to him. That way, the entire province can pool its resources into a single person, giving their general the best possible chance of securing a Top Five position and claiming the Ascension Clause."
"That is a massive assumption," Lin Yuan noted calmly. "Elder Xuanji never mentioned that if I fail to make the Top Five, the Ascension Clause would be opened to any other Lower Division province that did."
"Exactly!" Fu Lang’s mind was reeling out loud now. "That’s what I thought! Why go through all that trouble for a rule that might not even exist? Unless the fact that it wasn’t explicitly forbidden implies that it is allowed! Cultivation politics are always hidden in the fine print, Brother Lin. That’s why they are exploring the eastern side in groups, pooling their strength to get more tokens. They believe since you are the only one from the Zhao Province, you are at a massive numerical disadvantage, and they can steal your glory."
"But they have fallen directly into Chu Kuang’s hands," Lin Yuan finished the thought.
Lin Yuan’s mind reeled further. If the Golden Diting cultivators were merely acting as Fu Lang had described, and all their tokens had already been safely deposited with their chosen Participating General, then these particular disciples were most likely carrying few, if any, tokens. There was no way an Early Stage Spirit Severing cultivator from the Chu Province could have been unaware of that.
This realization cemented Lin Yuan’s suspicion that Chu Kuang was not after their tokens. Whatever his objective was, the Golden Diting cultivators were merely a means to an end. He was hunting them for something else entirely.
Lin Yuan’s mind was already racing.
Why?
Why would Chu Kuang expend the strength of an Early Stage Spirit Severing cultivator to capture cultivators who possessed little or nothing of value, while deliberately ignoring the one person carrying six tokens?