Chapter 1002: After revision: Chapter 44 Return to Lu Country

    Yan Yu felt increasingly unwell.

    Firstly, he occasionally felt somewhat fatigued.

    A Golden Core Cultivator’s body is in a state of perfect balance, generally should be energetic at all times, and fatigue is a typical symptom of energy depletion.

    Secondly, his stamina was also shortening.

    Yan Yu had to start considering a question: was he really under a curse?

    Although Anna firmly denied it, Yan Yu was more unwilling to believe that his perfectly honed body would start declining due to too much fighting—it must be this treacherous blond secretly cursing me!

    The demons of the Northern Border were not hard to deal with. First, the number of blood sacrifices was severely insufficient, making the average strength of the demons extremely weak; second, both Yan Yu and Anna were in the Golden Core Realm, so eliminating them wasn’t very difficult.

    But the problem with curses was very tricky. Although Yan Yu was a Golden Core Cultivator and theoretically should be hard to invade from outside, if he had to endure a curse after every battle, he couldn’t predict the final outcome as it accumulated over time.

    In his past life, no man had ever been targeted by the Eclipse Queen in this way!

    That day, after defeating the Witch Queen once again, Yan Yu sat on the nearby sofa, lost in thought.

    “What’s wrong?” A soft body sat down next to him, it was Anna, who still looked radiant despite being defeated, “What are you thinking about?”

    “Thinking about how to get rid of the curse you placed on me,” Yan Yu replied.

    “Dear, I didn’t place any curse on you.” Anna smiled charmingly, “If you feel something is restraining you, it’s probably because of the love between us.”

    Was it love? Yan Yu asked himself. He was definitely in love with Anna, just like with Ruoxi, Yun Jin, and Ningning, but to say that this love could restrain him was simply absurd. Even in terms of quantity, I have so many lovers in Lu Contry, and you count as just one, how can you compare?

    “I should return to Lu Contry.” Yan Yu said in a deep voice, “The powerful ones have basically been eliminated, the rest you can handle yourself.”

    “Okay.” Anna readily agreed, then added, “There are still 22 demons left to deal with, give me 22 battles before you go, is that okay?”

    “What 22 battles!” Yan Yu immediately scolded her, “Even a reservoir with abundant storage can’t release water 22 times!”

    “Ah, you can’t?” Anna asked in amazement.

    “Of course not!” Yan Yu was speechless, are you really that foolish or just pretending, “How about this, 22 times, right? I’ll head back to Lu Contry, and the next time I come I’ll make up for it.”

    “No.” Anna smiled broadly as she hugged him, “If you don’t give me that, I won’t let you leave.” Sear?h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    “Don’t force me to fight you!” Yan Yu’s face darkened.

    “Alright, alright!” Anna immediately nodded, “Knock me down, and you can leave whenever you want!”

    Yan Yu was at a loss for words because even without demonizing his body, the body reconstructed entirely with magic power as an advanced witch was truly tough, unlike Lu Contry’s cultivators who still had to consider the Yin Yang balance… It might only take two or three hours to make her concede, but to completely defeat her, who knows how long it would take.

    “Are you scared of me?” Anna gently held his hand, interlocking her fingers with his, and then firmly pulled him towards herself, “The Divine General of Lu Contry, afraid of the Witch Queen, wouldn’t that be a disgrace to Lu Contry’s dignity?”

    Upon hearing this, Yan Yu immediately got a jolt, and skillfully subdued her.

    My personal health is a small matter, the dignity of Lu Contry must not be compromised!

    And the mercilessly subdued Anna just giggled, eyes full of cunning, pride, and anticipation.

    ————————

    After staying in the Northern Border for three weeks, Yan Yu finally completely quelled the unrest and returned to the Wudang Mountain base.

    “What happened to you?” Mei Yingxue asked in surprise, “You look a bit listless.”

    “It’s nothing.” Yan Yu said expressionlessly, “Ran into a mishap during cultivation, just need some adjustment.”

    “Alright.” Mei Yingxue didn’t dwell on it, “Xie Ruoxi is going to cross her tribulation this afternoon; you still have time to lend her the Liangyi Micro Dust Sword.”

    “Lending it to her won’t help, her aim might not be accurate enough to hit the Tribulation Thunder.” Yan Yu said, “A large-scale Taoism method might be more suitable for her.”

    “So according to you, the Ten Thousand Bamboo Sword isn’t suitable for her either.” Mei Yingxue mused.

    “Right.” Yan Yu sighed, “Her True Yuan is abundant enough to support some more indulging tactics, so methods with a slightly higher consumption can also be considered, but don’t let her use techniques that require precise operation. If the effect is less than ideal, it will increase her mental burden.”

    “Single consumption ratio”, a new term in Lu Contry’s cultivation refinement study, refers to the amount of True Yuan consumed by a particular tribulation crossing method to break a single Tribulation Thunder. Assuming that refining a Replenishing Qi Pill replenishes 40,000 standard units of True Yuan, then a single consumption ratio of 12-17 units for a tribulation crossing method is considered a cost-effective approach.

    Of course, cultivation talent not only affects the total amount of True Yuan but also its quality. The same standard unit of True Yuan of Xie Ruoxi’s is definitely more resilient than that of Chen Lingyun’s.

    Therefore, in Yan Yu’s view, any technique with a single consumption ratio within 25 could be tried by Ruoxi, and if it really couldn’t work, 30 might even be considered. On the other hand, the difficulty of operation needed to be heavily restricted. For example, if it took someone else one shot to hit the Tribulation Thunder, and Ruoxi, with her poor aim, needed two shots, the actual single consumption ratio would effectively double, making it less cost-effective.

    After hearing Yan Yu’s analysis, Mei Yingxue nodded thoughtfully and said:

    “Indeed, it seems the tribulation crossing plan needs to be revised a bit.”

    “It’s best to postpone it.” Yan Yu said, “Once revised, she needs time to get used to it, right?”

    “Postponing is not an easy option either.” Mei Yingxue said tactfully, “In Chongying, the number of missing people has already reached 30 million.”

    “So many?!” Yan Yu was shocked.

    In his past life, when Chongying was cultivating Orochi, the population decline was very slow. Due to the severe aging population issue and the elderly’s lack of adeptness at using the internet to voice out, as long as the decline was controlled and the media narrative managed, the lid could temporarily be kept on.

    Now, probably due to the immense pressure from Lu Contry, they had no choice but to accelerate the cultivation plan. But no matter what, the sudden disappearance of tens of millions within a month is bound to cause massive societal upheaval. Conversely, it also meant that the emergence of Orochi was likely imminent, which would cause pressure on Lu Contry as well.

    After all, that’s a blood sacrifice of tens of millions!

    “Any clues from the ritual site?” Yan Yu asked.

    “We are speeding up the investigation.” Mei Yingxue replied, “The hierarchy within the Yin Yang Bureau is very strict, and communication between upper and lower levels is highly opaque, so progress has been unsatisfactory.”

    Mei Yingxue wasn’t exaggerating. For example, at Pear Blossom Courtyard in Goryeo, the intelligence value provided by Sword God Park alone was worth the work of an entire battalion of intelligence personnel because no matter how secretive and difficult the mission, it was impossible to keep it from him—he was the number one sword god in the country, you can’t expect him to carry out a task without disclosing its content, can you?

    The more people know about something, the easier it is to leak. On the other hand, fewer people mean higher individual capabilities were required. Yan Yu even suspected that it was likely Shenyuan Simie and Shuzaki Daigo among the three Demon Kings causing the trouble, as Oneiroi Ichi was too rigid and conservative in nature to be involved in such slaughter of common folk.

    Indeed, Oneiroi Ichi wouldn’t be looking for the Sun True Dullness Sword, would he?

    “Any progress on the whereabouts of the Sun True Dullness Sword?” Yan Yu asked.

    “No progress, that’s what I wanted to say.” Mei Yingxue sighed, “We suspect that the Sun True Dullness Sword might not be in the trench at all.”

    Deep-sea exploration is extremely difficult, and few cultivators in Lu Contry were capable of it, consuming a lot of manpower and time with low efficiency. Therefore, Lu Contry had simultaneously adopted another approach, letting cultivators with calculation abilities try to locate it.

    But what to calculate? The Sun True Dullness Sword’s rank was too high, pinpointing its precise location was impossible. So the idea was to figure out where in the Mariana Trench the transcendent beings were frequenting—if someone was trying to capture the Sun True Dullness Sword, they would undoubtedly be making repeated visits to attempt it.

    The result was none.

    There were no transcendent beings frequenting the Mariana Trench at all.

    The Privy Council initially suspected interference with the calculation results, so they sought the help of Li Zhikang, a calculation master (his identity was exposed by Yan Yu), to verify. The answer was that the results were correct, and the Sun True Dullness Sword was indeed not in the trench.

    “Hmm…” Yan Yu frowned, “The Sword Intent tells me the main body is in the deep sea to the east but not in the Mariana Trench. What’s going on?”

    “I don’t know either.” Mei Yingxue pondered, “If it’s not in the trench but still in a very deep water body, could it be somewhere in Chongying’s underground water system?”

    “That would require us to explore Chongying’s entire underground water network, the scale and difficulty of it are too great.” Yan Yu shook his head, “And tell me, how did the Onmyoji from Chongying find it then?”

    “There’s a teleportation formation, called the Ten Thousand Miles Water Vein Divine Travel Formation, which allows one to jump between different bodies of water.” Mei Yingxue said seriously, “I’m not saying the Yin Yang Bureau has this formation, but given how the world is with Spiritual Energy Resurgence, abilities far beyond common logic exist, it’s sensible for us to imagine such possibilities.”

    “I have an idea.” Yan Yu suddenly said, “Whether to find the true location of Orochi or to discover the clues about the Sun True Dullness Sword, we need to infiltrate the Yin Yang Bureau’s high ranks, right?”

    “You mean?” Mei Yingxue asked in confusion.

    “See if we can turn Shuzaki Daigo or Oneiroi Ichi.” Yan Yu suggested, “Forget about Shenyuan Simie, that guy is a maniac, the best way to deal with him is to kill him.”

    “Although Shuzaki Daigo has an ambiguous attitude towards Lu Contry, we believe his ambitions are not small, which makes him difficult to win over; Oneiroi Ichi is traditional and rigid, and extremely loyal to the Yin Yang Bureau, so neither has much likelihood of being swayed.” Mei Yingxue sighed, “But it is worth a try.”

    “If it doesn’t work out, we should aim to get a few more Golden Core True Men, then directly form a team to raid the Yin Yang Bureau headquarters.” Yan Yu made a decisive gesture, “Eradicate them from the root, that way we won’t have to worry about any schemes.”

    “I’ll suggest this to the higher-ups.” Mei Yingxue smiled, “There’s nothing more here. You should go meet up with your teammates, Xie Ruoxi would surely appreciate you protecting her through her tribulation.”