Star Gate

“Deputy Zhou, did you reverse your body in Silver Moon?” Li Hao was also curious.

“Yes.”

“In one of the main cities?”

“No, just a small ruin.” He was quite resigned to see Li Hao’s evident curiosity. “It really was a small ruin. I didn’t know who the senior was either. I barged into it by accident and he was at the end of his tether. He perished soon after modifying my body.”

Li Hao nodded and didn’t ask further.

“Was there a name to those ruins?” The two robot cats remained curious.

“No particular name, just that it was called Golden Body Hall.”

The two robot cats searched through their memories—Jiang Yingli seemed to remember something after a while and said regretfully, “I think I know who it is. Little Li, do you remember a genius senior student who left Capital Martial?”

“I do. Ah… I remember who…”

The rest of the group were curious and Deputy Zhou couldn’t help but say, “Do the two seniors know that one?”

“Yes, he was a senior from Capital Martial University and came from the main world. He wanted to borrow the Formation of Heaven and Earth to suppress himself and break through the limits of the golden body. Nothing was heard from him after. He was very strong and set foot into the Saint level early on. To think… that he wouldn’t make it through.”

“That’s only to be expected. Didn’t our teacher almost fail to make it to present day as well? The dao of the golden body produces those with weak mental strength. It’s incredible enough that he made it to present day through just his physical body alone…”

“That’s very true!”

The two found their identification regretful, but it wasn’t as if they’d known that senior well either. They weren’t that much better off themselves. Was it a much better outcome to survive in the form of lingering mental strength and having become a puppet?

Their teacher was a Saint, but his physical body was also gone and he lingered on as mental fragments.

……

The group chatted with each other while making fast time. It took only three hours before Li Hao saw a towering mountain. As opposed to being by the sea, it was in the middle of a mountain range. He saw it with a single glance because sword intent flourished from it.

The Sky Sword Manor, a sacred land for sword cultivators around the world!

Sky Sword stepped forward without another word. His armor faded away and sword intent surged. The manor immediately responded as heavyweights appeared in the air.

“Mountain lord!” they hailed as they looked at the group.

“Mmhmm. Has all been well?”

“Nothing has happened!” With that, everyone focused on Li Hao and the rest. The mountain lord didn’t have many friends and very few visitors came to the mountain. Their lord had apparently gone to the Skystar Commander Office in Skystar City. So… did that mean Li Hao was among this group?

Their guess was confirmed when they saw Panther. Li Hao should be part of this group—he was likely the Gold Armor.

The young man chose to dismiss his visor at this time and looked at those assembled below. Sword intent bristled from roughly one hundred people. That wasn’t many, but all of them possessed a sword aura. Some of them had very strong auras that were stronger than Liu Long’s! They would likely reach the stage of unsealing themselves if they continued down their paths. Once they did, that meant they’d reached the metamorphosis stage.

No wonder all of Sky Sword Manor was hailed as a cultivation sacred ground for the sword. It was exceedingly difficult for pure sword cultivators to reach this step.

Sky Sword was a man of few words and didn’t choose to engage his people in conversation. “Continue cultivating!” he commanded. Those hovering in the air swiftly landed on the ground, but remained looking curiously at the visitors. Li Hao and the rest follow Sky Sword toward a certain spot on the mountain. They soon stopped in front of a residence door.

“Here it is!” Sky Sword pointed at the door. “The ruin is inside. I don’t come here that often either.”

Li Hao focused on the door—there were characters over it. Empty Spirit Manor. The young man looked at the two puppets. They stared back at him. What are you looking at us for?

“Do the seniors know this Empty Spirit Manor?”

“No. There were plenty of heavyweights in the world and we were just students, how would we know so much? Not to mention, this is Silver Moon. We don’t know much about it either. We don’t really go anywhere besides the eight main cities and Skystar Town.”

Fine then, this was a nobody!

“I’m here, senior!” Sky Sword transmitted.

A tendril of mental strength unfurled, but hovered around the door as it sensed something. “You can come by yourself, why… bring so many?” came a wizened voice.

“We need to go against a strong enemy, so we wish for the senior to sever an Apex replica to help us!” Sky Sword said bluntly.

“……” You’re being too blunt! Even Li Hao was speechless at the man.

The existence in the cave was plainly shocked beyond belief. It took a while for it to respond. “I’ve had you supply energy stones to repair my body and core origin over the years. You’ve given me less than five hundred thousand stones altogether… and now you want me to split off enough core origin for an Apex replica?”

Are you kidding??

Li Hao couldn’t help but look at Sky Sword as well. Five hundred thousand energy stones were just five million mysterious power stones. That was only one hundred drops of Water of Life! As one of the seven divine mountains, that was indeed a bit miserly…

Well, perhaps Sky Sword was poor and five million stones a lot. But just that amount alone… would truly make it difficult for the plant spirit to recover by too much.

“It’s better than not supplying any,” Sky Sword intoned. “There are many plant spirits who have awakened in the world these days and some don’t even have people to partner with. Senior should be satisfied!”

Satisfied with what?? You are one of the seven divine mountains and the lord of Sky Sword Mountain! Although the plant spirit had never ventured forth from the cave, it knew a bit of the world thanks to conversing with some people and the occasional eavesdropping on the mountain.

Sky Sword was a very decisive sort who didn’t like for things to drag on. “This will be beneficial to you, senior! I’ve brought the commander of the Skystar Commander Office with me. A partnership will bring you only benefits, and a lack of cooperation will only bring death!”

“Are you threatening me?” The plant spirit was stunned.

“Yes, I’m threatening you!” Sky Sword nodded. “We killed the Golden Coconut of Skystar Town not too long ago. There is no use for the senior if you do not cooperate, so there is no need to keep you around. We’ll kill you and exchange you for a plant spirit who will work with us!”

“……” All was quiet. Li Hao and the others held their faces. Was this how a negotiation should be conducted? Was this how Sky Sword always talked to the plant spirits? And we thought you would advise them earnestly and kindly! You came out with guns a-blazin’!

The plant spirit was utterly shocked and couldn’t find the words it wanted. “You can kill an Immortal…”

“It won’t cooperate, kill it!” Sky Sword turned before it had a chance to finish.

“……”

“Cough cough cough…” Hou Xiaochen couldn’t contain himself and broke into a coughing fit. We know that you’re a decisive man, but this isn’t when you should be decisive!

The deputy was equally at a loss.

“We haven’t really discussed anything yet, Senior Sky Sword.” Li Hao grinned. “You’re in too much of a hurry. We can talk first and consider killing this plant spirit senior if it’s really unwilling to join us…”

The surge of mental strength swept through the mountain cave, not knowing whether to fly into a rage or what. Why was this happening!

It’d been incredibly unlucky back in the day to run into this fellow. It’d thought that the man would devote himself to collecting energy stones, but he focused on cultivation most of the time and didn’t venture out of the mountain.

When he did, it was just to kill some people. He traded whatever mysterious power stones he collected and didn’t if there were none to pick up. If it wasn’t for him being strong enough to kill some powerhouses and seize their mysterious power stones, Sky Sword might not have afforded even ten drops of Water of Life.

Most of the one hundred he’d traded for had taken place in recent times. The instances that he’d acted on Li Hao’s behalf had brought him some gains. Although he hadn’t purposefully taken the treasures from those operations, he’d still benefited in other ways.

Otherwise, all that Sword Sovereign had traded for in the past decade was just a few drops of Water of Life.

“Anyone can boast.” The plant spirit in the cave grew irritated. “Just try killing me if you wish to…”

“Let us go, let us go.” The two robot cats were the ones to fly into a fury before Li Hao could even become agitated. “Give us some energy stones, Li Hao, we’ll kill it. This little plant spirit doesn’t listen to orders! It can see you’re in a commander’s armor, but it still doesn’t listen. It must have turned traitor, we’ll exterminate it!”

“Commander’s armor?” It was then that the plant spirit in the cave noticed the presence of golden armor. It jerked with shock when it noted the aureate sheen and that the rest of the group was dressed in silver armor. Troop leaders?

The Battle Heaven Army! It recognized some particular marks on the armor—that was the armor of Battle Heaven, one of the eight main cities! And one of their commanders stood in front of it! How could this be?

The main cities had fallen silent, how could there be a commander here?

“Senior, we’re being polite right now,” smiled Li Hao. “We really will have to exterminate you if you continue to refuse us. Also, the two beside me are students of Evenround Martial University. Perhaps the senior has not heard of the institution before, but one of the two is from the Li family of Tranquil Star, and the other is from the Jiang family of Tranquil Star. Does the senior wish to continue your resistance?”

“Tranquil Star… how is that possible… New Martial humans died long ago…”

“Give us energy stones so we can kill this little plant spirit!” raged the two robot cats. “How dare you!”

Li Hao was caught between a rock and a hard place. I do have some mysterious power stones, but only a couple million of them. I need to use them sparingly. Aren’t we still negotiating right now? I would agree to your request if I wasn’t short on mysterious power stones, but I… am short of them!

Mental strength rippled within the cave as light shifted over a big jujube tree. Mental strength extended toward the two puppets to sense the form of the robot cats… Its heart quailed to find that the New Martial humans had resurrected! Even puppets were extraordinary as it meant a powerhouse had safeguarded their mental strength.

It had heard of Evenround Martial University before and Tranquil Star was a familiar name! But severing an Apex replica… It wasn’t like it’d recovered enough for that!

The amount of core origin it had left might not make it as strong as the little tree; it would have to separate out sixty percent in order to create a replica. That was half of its life! It would stand no chance of defending itself if those outside rushed in—the jujube tree could already sense some danger.

At the same time, it faced a main city commander and New Martial human survivors. It wavered between different states of terror.

etvolare’s Thoughts

Happy 2025 everyone!