Star Gate

Chapter 561: The Windchaser Boots (I)

The period of rest and recovery endured for a very long time—a full day and night. Shards of mysterious power stones by Li Hao’s body almost formed a mountain. Aside from the massive stone from Hong Yitang, Li Hao consumed eight thousand pieces from his own cache!

Indeed, eight thousand!

He’d nearly consumed all of the ten thousand pieces that the Silver Moon authorities had given to him as a deposit. If Hong Yitang’s was included, this meant that they’d depleted more than ten thousand stones on this endeavor. It was a frightful figure, but one that Light Sword wasn’t fully responsible for. The others had absorbed a great deal as well.

Not only that, but a lot had been stored within the little sword. He wouldn’t have to replenish it first each time before he used it. Regardless, Li Hao spent the mysterious power stones to show Light Sword what a grave undertaking this was. He wanted her to know that the deposit paid by the official authorities was insufficient for her use.

Li Hao himself had absorbed a lot of sword energy and melded it into his heart's supernatural lock, but he still didn’t sense its saturation. This was turning into quite a wearying endeavor.

It meant that he couldn’t be like the others and explosively increase his battle strength after unsealing himself. That was so frustrating! He was strong enough at the moment, but if he could unseal himself, he might be able to match himself against those in metamorphosis, could he not?

What a damned pity!

Everyone could do it, but he could not. Was his potential too great or the actual truth that he just couldn’t?

One had to saturate at least one supernatural lock or more in order to unseal one’s strength for battle. Those like He Yong seemed to have reached capacity in their locks of the four limbs first, so these people should’ve saturated at least four, if not more.

Only then did they unseal themselves.

Light Sword had unsealed five locks of her internal organs. That didn’t mean she’d saturated all five—Li Hao judged that she might’ve saturated only one of them before unsealing them all. That would simply affect her strength after unsealing.

Hong Yitang should’ve filled his by a great deal this time. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so coolly composed in each fight and find it relatively easy to suppress his energy after he unsealed them. It looked to be that the more saturated one lock was, the more easy it was to control one’s strength and prevent an overload.

......

An entire day and night passed. The group opened their eyes when the sky brightened again.

Light Sword heaved a long sigh and breathed out a breath of putrid air that was a bit pungent. “My thanks to you two!” She looked at Li Hao and Hong Yitang.

Hong Yitang said nothing and simply reminded her, “Just remember that you owe me three thousand mysterious power stones...”

It was the same price as what he quoted He Yong—he didn’t increase it. As for what he’d absorbed, he’d consider it payment for his labor. He didn’t normally include that in his bills. It wasn’t unreasonable to charge a fee for labor since he’d been part of the fighting.

“I will remember the favor that I owe you.” Light Sword took out a storage ring without a word. “These stones should be roughly enough.”

Hong Yitang accepted the ring without protest. He smiled after looking into it. “There’s more than three thousand here. That fulfills your debt. You’re more reliable than He Yong—the guy still owes me. Bah, he’s ridiculous!”

Li Hao was slightly surprised at the prompt payment. She was rich and took out three thousand mysterious power stones without a word! Light Sword really had gotten fat from her service to the Steadfast Duke.

“That was from the storage rings from the Steadfast Duke’s generals that I killed,” said Light Sword when she saw Li Hao look over. “Five Novas have quite some savings.”

There’d been five premier Novas who were generals. Just that was enough.

“The Silver Moon authorities are their own matter. I will compensate you for what you just consumed, but I don’t have that many mysterious power stones at the moment.”

“Forget that then,” Li Hao dismissed. “I’ll take the storage rings of the peak Novas that you killed in the last battle!”

They’d killed twelve premier heavyweights in the last battle. Other than Fan Cheng and Black Widow who escaped, the rest had all been executed. Li Hao also killed two Novas and multiple Solars along the way, so he currently held many storage rings.

“That belongs to you in the first place...”

Li Hao said nothing; he glanced at Hong Yitang. Hong Yitang had also killed a few powerhouses. Apart from the storage ring belonging to the metamorphosis expert, Panther had taken the rest and given it all to the young man.

“What are you looking at?” Hong Yitang grumped. “I take the goods from whoever I killed. All of my battle spoils are mine. I have a lot of mouths to feed and you want to fleece me of my riches?!”

“......” The look in Li Hao’s eyes turned sheepish. I... really did have that kind of thought.

The main thing was, the guy always presented himself with a noble and virtuous demeanor. He offered up whatever people needed, so the young man felt that Earthturner Sword might as well hand over the storage ring if he didn’t have a need for it.

But it turned out that Hong Yitang did need it!

Ai! Li Hao sighed and took out a storage ring. Of the twelve that’d died, Li Hao had killed five, the dog killed two, Light Sword killed three, and Hong Yitang had killed two. Unfortunately, Li Hao had killed the weaklings—one mid Nova and four late Novas.

Light Sword killed two peak Novas and one late Nova. The dog had killed a peak, a late Nova, and contributed to the one in the water, but Li Hao took credit for that one. Hong Yitang had killed a metamorphosis powerhouse and a mid Nova.

To be honest, this wasn’t how merits were calculated. Hong Yitang had suffered the brunt of all the pressure by himself and continuously maintained defense. Strictly speaking, half of the credit for Li Hao killing these people went to him, but Li Hao didn’t feel inclined to be that generous with the man because...

Most of what I get is going to your Sword Sect disciples at the end of the day.

The thirty martial masters from the Sword Sect consumed a great deal of resources. They all depended on Li Hao. But to be honest, most of those resources came from Hong Yitang.

The man almost rolled his eyes at the storage ring. Your math is quite good, huh kid? Other than Qian Feng’s ring, you really gave me a storage ring from a mid Nova.

Hong Yitang couldn’t be bothered to quibble and accepted the ring. His lack of refusal put a stop to Li Hao’s craftiness. Both of them started laughing.

“If Martial Uncle Hong is short on money, you can come to me anytime. We can go rob pirates if we need money. They have tons!”

“......” Hong Yitang’s laughter petered out. Screw you!

Li Hao was in merry spirits. Though he’d yet to take inventory of his gains, there must be quite a bit. These were all great personages with tremendous strength, surely they had to carry at least one thousand mysterious power stones each to be worthy of their prestige!

Other than the two rings that Hong Yitang had taken, Li Hao had the gains from the ten remaining rings, the two Nova pirates, and multiple Solars... No matter how he looked at it, he’d reaped at least ten thousand stones!

There was also the twenty thousand that the Silver Moon authorities owed him and an additional origin weapon. Speaking of origin weapons, he should’ve gained more this time as well. Li Hao hadn’t paid attention previously and stowed some bodies when he killed them. There ought to be some more for him to discover.

He’d truly struck it rich in this battle!

There were two thousand stones left from the deposit that the provincial government had given him; the young man had almost two thousand left to begin with... To think that he couldn’t bear to use one stone just a few days ago, and now...

With strength comes capital. Without strength, one is just cannon fodder. Li Hao sighed to himself. Look at that, killing a few pirates gave him all the money he needed!

“You need to keep yourself in check!” Hong Yitang cut into his emotional reflection. “Silver Moon’s circumstances may not be as good as we think. I’m not certain of the particulars, but I know that we are a thorn in the side of many people. The more exemplary you are, the more easily suppressed you can be! Don’t imitate your master. He jumped around the most back in the day and was eventually confined to Silver City because of it, forbidden to go out...”

“I need to say a few words when it comes to this.” Li Hao raised an eyebrow. “Silver Moon is not weak. How did Ying Hongyue do it back then, to force my master to turtle in Silver City? Director Hou and the others...”

Although Hou Xiaochen had fought Ying Hongyue once for Yuan Shuo, he’d tacitly approved Yuan Shuo staying within Silver City after that.

This did not conform with the Silver Moon style in Li Hao’s eyes—that treatment was too cruel for Yuan Shuo. Everyone else could leave and walk around with freedom, but he could not. He’d spent the equivalent of almost two decades in jail...

Hong Yitang rolled his eyes and didn’t feel like answering. It was Light Sword who sighed softly because she knew of certain details.

“Your master... offended too many people! Silver Moon was forced to agree to this out of consideration for the greater picture. At least it wouldn’t require your master’s life. Ying Hongyue was just one of them, there was also the mountain lord of Buddha Mountain, Yama of the Yama organization, the Celestial Sword Immortal of Celestial, the lord of Yonder Mountain... Silver Moon could not have stood against them all. Fighting for survival for your master was difficult enough already.”

“No way!” Li Hao started. “Isn’t it just Ying Hongyue?”

You’re kidding! Based on this, his master had pretty much offended all of the three great organizations and seven divine mountains. All three organization leaders and two of the divine mountains shared grudges with my master?

That was nuts!

“Pretty much!” Hong Yitang coughed gently when he looked at Li Hao. “There’s much about your master that you don’t know. You just know a bit of what happened in the Silver Moon martial world. Your master once visited the central region and even traveled through the rest of the dynasty. Everywhere was his home and he traveled anywhere he could when he was young to meld the five auras together. He offended too many people in the process.”

“Then why didn’t he just kill them all...” Li Hao couldn’t help but grumble. He’d left such a huge mess behind!

“There were either people protecting the people he challenged, or it would be difficult to explain himself if he killed them, or he could pull his punches because he was the one who issued the challenge. If the disparity in strength was that great, he could not just kill them...” Hong Yitang explained. It wasn’t that Yuan Shuo didn’t want to, but sometimes he couldn’t.

It was one thing to be unable to pull one’s punches in a challenge, but if one could and still beat their opponent to death.. they would be a true demon! Old Demon Yuan was a demon, but he wasn’t crazy.

However, that created numerous enemies for him. Gratitude did not flourish just because he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to kill someone.