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Back at his sword pavilion, he took time to study the surroundings before going inside. He just wanted to make sure there were no signs that anyone had been snooping around or setting up some sort of trap. It was a habit that had long since become an instinct.

Once inside, he took a deep breath and thought back to everything that happened on the mission. He analyzed all the areas where he was deficient, and thought about how he could have done better. By the time he was finished, it was evening, and he settled down cross-legged to focus on rest and recovery.

However, he couldn’t stop thinking about that young man in the middle of that spell formation, gasping for breath.

I bet his father was the agent....

And if that was the case, Xu Qing couldn’t help but wonder if the father had just abandoned his son, or perhaps even used him as a distraction. Had there been other people who ended up just like that young man? Or had the agent made himself the distraction, and secretly given the intelligence report to someone else? There was no way for Xu Qing to know for certain. After thinking about it for a while, he shook his head. Then he thought back to the eight-palace Black Guard cultivator he’d killed.

Given my current battle prowess, I was able to kill an eight-palace cultivator by pulling out all the stops. But if it was a nine-palace cultivator... that would be a lot harder. Eight palaces was the limit for most four-flame cultivators.

Of course, it was also the case that some freakish hellions who didn’t open their 121st dharma aperture could get two imperial-class techniques and possibly have life lamps. And therefore, it was possible for people like that to eventually get nine-palace battle prowess.

But other than them, most cultivators who reach their limit with heavenly palaces will then try to step into the Nascent Soul level. Xu Qing’s eyes glittered thoughtfully.

It wasn’t exactly easy to break into the Nascent Soul level, and that was why most Gold Core cultivators who reached their limit would then start trying to form a nascent soul. It was a very mysterious and profound process, and because it was so common for people to stay in that state for an extended time, cultivators used a special name for that level. They would either call it half-Nascent Soul or pseudo-Nascent Soul.

Thanks to the fight he had just experienced, Xu Qing now had first-hand knowledge about the pseudo-Nascent Soul level.

It’s stronger than the eight- or nine-palace level. It’s actually much closer to ten palaces! I’m still too weak. I need to speed up my cultivation progress. What’s more, I probably should take a trip to the Supreme Void Demonization Sect and try to learn their Demonization Art.

If Xu Qing’s analysis was correct, the Demonization Art would help him materialize the Ghost Emperor in his sea of consciousness.

I wonder how much of a boost I’ll get when the Ghost Emperor is fully materialized. The mere thought filled him with anticipation.

Hopefully it all goes smoothly. If it does, then maybe I can make one of my heavenly palaces into... a Ghost Emperor palace! My limit is ten heavenly palaces, and I’ve already completed five of them. That means that the remaining five... should include a sword palace and the Ghost Emperor palace. That leaves three.

Oh right, there’s also my life essence bluegreen dragon.

In any case, the most urgent thing to think about right now is military credits. I previously asked for half a month off, which means I still have a week left. There’s no point in going back to work early.

His eyes glittered as he thought about the military credits he needed both to study the Demonization Art and to visit Mount Daybreak. Everything was related to military credits.

I should earn a good amount of military credits from the mission, but it’s still not going to be enough.... Xu Qing took out his command sword and started looking through the missions. Before long he found some bounty missions in the city. After checking his injuries to make sure they were stable, he left his sword pavilion, he left to try and gather some military credits.

Days passed. He never heard anyone talking about the big mission he’d gone on earlier. He had no idea who the real agent was, and had no idea if that agent had been successfully extracted and returned to the city. But apparently, the mission was concluded.

A week after his return, when he was out working hard to earn military credits, he got an urgent message from the Corrections Division. His vacation was over. Now he couldn’t spend his days doing missions. Instead he checked in with the Corrections Division at dawn.

When he walked down the stairs inside the division, he sensed the familiar coldness. The occasional Unit D jailer called out greetings to him as he passed. His mind was still focused mostly on missions and military credits.

Back at D-132, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. The inmates looked just as they had half a month before. The cloud troll was still eating its own tentacles. The human woman was still trying to coax the scarecrows to sleep. Sir Inkwell said good morning in a very cordial fashion. The Rockdevil rotated endlessly.

The head blinked, sighed, and said, “Things were calm for a whole half a month. Why’d you have to come back?”

Just as before, Xu Qing checked on all the inmates, then went back to his spot by the door and sat down. As he did, his expression flickered. He hadn’t seen the boy. That seemed unusual. Based on his memories, he knew that the boy was always the first one to show up when he stepped inside.

“Where’s the destiny aura?” he asked, looking over at Sir Inkwell’s cell.

Sir Inkwell clasped hands and quietly replied, “There’s... something wrong with the destiny aura. I haven’t seen it for a few days.”

Frowning, Xu Qing walked past all the cells again to check them more closely. He eventually stopped walking in front of one specific cell. Inside was the boy, who seemed to be having trouble breathing. He was covered in grime, with his face all smudged up. At the same time, he seemed unprecedentedly weak. He was clearly not in a good state, as he was trembling painfully.

Upon noticing Xu Qing, he struggled to lift his head. However, he was in such a listless state that he couldn’t even open his eyes. Despite that, he flashed a smile, then tried to stand up. Apparently, he wanted to resume his usual routine of following Xu Qing around and keeping him safe. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the strength. All he could do was look at Xu Qing and open his mouth as if to speak. No words came out. Given how lively and active he had always been in the past, his current state was very pitiable.

Concerned, Xu Qing squatted down and closely examined the boy. He could sense that the boy was in pain, and also noticed a black energy swirling inside of him. That black energy seemed to be transforming the boy in some way.

Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior and the shadow both appeared, and curiously assessed the boy.

Shortly after, the patriarch’s face filled with a very somber expression. Lowering his voice, he said, “Milord, given what I’ve read in books, I can speculate about what’s going on here.”

Xu Qing looked over.

“It’s a contamination. I’d say the boy probably went to some specific location and encountered an unclean thing.”

Hearing that, the boy nodded weakly.

When the patriarch saw his speculation confirmed, he knew that it was his moment to shine. Looking more somber than ever, he clasped hands to Xu Qing.

“Milord, based on my experience, most vile, unclean things can be dealt with using lightning. If you permit, milord, your humble servant can attempt to use my own heavenly tribulation lightning to purify the boy of the contamination.”

Xu Qing thought about it for a time. He didn’t know much about destiny aura, and had no idea if the patriarch’s idea would help. Then he thought about the palace lord.

“Does the palace lord know about you?” Xu Qing whispered.

The boy nodded.

“Does he know about your current state?” Xu Qing asked.

The boy lifted a hand and gestured, but Xu Qing wasn’t sure what it meant.

At that point, the shadow spoke.

“Looks like... says palace lord knows... and helped it... said to rest up... be fine.”

Apparently the shadow had some experience with situations like this.

The boy nodded, then seemed to be hit by a wave of weakness, and closed his eyes.

Seeing how much pain the boy was obviously in, Xu Qing had Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior try out his idea.

The moment the patriarch had the go-ahead, he waved his hand, causing red lightning to appear. Carefully approaching the boy, he released one small bolt of heavenly tribulation lightning. When the lightning entered the boy, he shivered from head to toe. At the same time, the black energy within him faded a bit. Seeing that it was effective, the patriarch added more lightning. Before long, the black energy was disappearing rapidly, and the boy’s weakness was transforming back into strength.

It wasn’t a complete cure; in the end, there was still a little bit of the black energy in him. But its effects were greatly reduced.

Also, it did a lot to mitigate the pain. Eventually, the boy was back on his feet, walking a circle around Xu Qing and smiling happily. Considering there was still a bit of the black energy inside the boy, Xu Qing got the sense there was a lot more to the situation than he understood. But since the palace lord was aware of the situation, Xu Qing knew it surpassed his ability to truly handle.

He was right. The next morning when he showed up at D-132, the boy was completely back to normal. The black energy was gone, and he was in just as high spirits as usual.

With everything back to normal, Xu Qing spent his days at work and his nights doing missions to get military credits. Though his military credit balance was growing, he didn’t have nearly enough for what he wanted to do. But then one evening when he was out on missions, he got a voice message from Kong Xianglong.

“Xu Qing, are you at your sword pavilion? If you are, I can swing by. Our military credits for the mission came in.”

Xu Qing’s spirits lifted.

Before long, he was at the entrance of his sword pavilion, watching Kong Xianglong fly over.

Upon catching sight of Xu Qing, Kong Xianglong laughed heartily. Tossing him a bag of holding, he said, “There are two things inside. One is the military credit receipt. I already had it verified. All you have to do is add it to your command sword.

“The other thing is that gift I mentioned. Over the past few days I thought about your fighting style. I have the feeling that if you put some more mutagen into that Gruegloom hand of yours, it would probably be a lot more effective. Grueglooms also count as a nonhuman race, so if you do that, you’ll need to balance the mutagen properly. It’s just a suggestion. Give it a try if you think it might work. Anyway, enough of that. I have to take a trip to the Corrections Division now. Ai. The palace lord summoned me, so I have no choice but to go.”

Sighing, Kong Xianglong clasped hands to leave. Xu Qing tried to get him to stay a bit longer, but regardless of how he pressed, Kong Xianglong hurried away.

As he left, Xu Qing clasped hands and bowed deeply, feeling deeply thankful in his heart.

Back inside his sword pavilion, he opened the bag of holding to find that there were indeed two items there. One was the military credit verification jade slip. The other was a blue chunk of ice. The ice was the manifestation of a magical technique, and inside of it was sealed a heart! The heart was semitransparent, and looking at it closely, it was obviously not completely dead. There were bits of life force in it.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed as came to the realization it was a Gruegloom heart. Xu Qing was by no means unfamiliar with Grueglooms. He had once captured one alive, and had ultimately assimilated it.

In fact, that foundation was what gave Master Seventh the initial inspiration for the Gruegloom Daoseizing Art. Assimilating that Gruegloom was what gave Xu Qing a solid foundation upon which to cultivate the Gruegloom Daoseizing Art.

Master Seventh had then taken inspiration from the fingers cultivated by Huang Yikun from the Dark Serenity Sect. Add in a Gruegloom heart from Sima Ru of the House of Grue Hunters, as well as dao-seizing techniques from numerous smaller sects, and Master Seventh had collected everything he needed to create the Gruegloom Daoseizing Art.

Theoretically speaking, another Gruegloom heart should make the Gruegloom Daoseizing Art even stronger.

Unfortunately, Grueglooms were a rare species. And by this point, Foundation Establishment Grueglooms wouldn’t be of much use to Xu Qing. He needed a Gold Core Gruegloom heart. As for the heart in the blue ice, it did indeed come from a Gruegloom in the Gold Core level. Looking up, Xu Qing gazed in the direction of the Corrections Division, where Kong Xianglong had just gone to. To Xu Qing, this was a really amazing gift.

Eventually, he looked back at the ice. Eyes shining with determination, he activated the Gruegloom Daoseizing Art, causing his right hand to turn semitransparent. Without any hesitation, he reached out with that transparent hand and stuck it into the ice. A moment later, he had extracted the Gruegloom heart from inside!

The moment he touched it, a tremor passed through him.

The Gruegloom heart emitted fluctuations of struggle, and then a howl of rage echoed in Xu Qing’s mind. But Xu Qing’s eyes glittered and he fiercely suppressed the struggling heart. The Gruegloom heart faded away as Xu Qing absorbed it using his technique. All of a sudden, a host of memory fragments appeared in Xu Qing’s mind, whipping about like a tempest.

They were scattered memories from whoever this Gruegloom heart had previously belonged to.

They contained madness and defiance, and they battered at Xu Qing’s sea of consciousness. However, Xu Qing snorted coldly, and the Ghost Emperor in his sea of consciousness flared with brilliance. A moment later, the memory fragments shattered into a cloud that then slowly dispersed into nothing. Xu Qing kept his Gruegloom Daoseizing Art active the whole time.

Gradually, the semitransparency of the technique wasn’t just limited to his right hand. His left hand... was also transforming. After about an hour passed, he took a deep breath and lifted both his hands. Both of them were now semitransparent.

Next time he used the Gruegloom Daoseizing Art on an enemy, it would be a lot easier, and he would be able to take gold cores with much more ease. Looking at his two hands in satisfaction, he thought back to what Kong Xianglong had said about mutagen.

“I suppose I could try it out,” he murmured. “That said, it seems inappropriate. It would be like telling all my enemies I’m skilled in the dao of poison and that I’m most effective when I have poison scattered everywhere.... It’s probably fine to do occasionally, maybe just as a distraction. If people are focused on my hands, then they might not notice my poison as quickly.”

Just as Xu Qing was thinking about what to do, his transmission jade slip vibrated as a voice message came in. It started with a long sigh, and then he heard the bitter voice of the Captain.

“Oh, how fickle you are, Little Ah Qing.”

Xu Qing was very taken aback.

“I know you like to seduce women and then kick them to the curb. But I’m your Eldest Brother! You can’t treat me like that! We already made an agreement between bros. We’re supposed to travel the world together. But in the end, you leave all the hard work to me....”

The Captain’s bitterness really came through on the jade slip, filling Xu Qing’s sword pavilion.

“Eldest Brother....”

Xu Qing hesitated for a moment, and was about to keep talking when yet another sigh came from the Captain.

“If it weren’t the fact that I work in the Merit Records Branch, and just happened to see that you earned a huge batch of military credits, then I would never have been the wiser.... It’s fine, little Junior Brother. As your Eldest Brother, I should offer congratulations. I hope that you and Kong Xianglong live a long and happy life together....” [1]

Xu Qing could sense that his Eldest Brother was really laying on the nonsense. And when that happened, it usually meant that he wanted something.

“Running low on spirit stones, Eldest Brother?” he asked coolly.

The Captain snorted coldly. “Is that what you think of your Eldest Brother, little Ah Qing? Is that the kind of person you think I am?”

“Fine, Eldest Brother. Since you don’t need spirit stones, forget I mentioned it.”

“Ahem... hey, hey, hey. Don’t be like that. Okay, fine. I actually do need just a few spirit stones.”

1. The Captain’s ‘live a long and happy life together’ is something usually said to a bride and groom on their wedding day lol. ☜