Previously, classes like the Sage and the Scholar all had three requirents, whereas the Spirit Adept only had two. However, Su Chen didn't feel any joy.
To so extent, this might indicate that these two requirents were even more difficult.
"The Nether Realm?" Sweeping his gaze over it, Su Chen quickly spotted the second requirent. the place entered during the Trial of Whispers was called the Nether Realm.
"Another Trial of Whispers?" Su Chen felt a wave of cold dread.
He had managed to evade it for 'Word Spirit Lord', and now another one popped up.
He could try to fulfill the other requirents no matter what, but this Trial of Whispers truly gave him zero sense of security.
That Nether Realm was far too sinister. Out of the three tis he had entered, he had encountered Evil Gods twice.
'The mont the Spirit Adept arrived, he paid his utmost respects to the Crimson Fla Responding Thunder Great Exalted and self-reduced his advancent requirents. The required portions of Essence of Spirituality to fuse with went from three portions to one portion.'
The usual Great Exalted face-giving segnt occurred. Unfortunately, it seed the 'Spirit Adept' knew better than to be stubborn and refuse to give face.
Even though it reduced the required Essence of Spirituality from three portions to one, he still had to go to the Nether Realm.
Shortly after, more information surfaced on his panel—
'Acquired the Spirit Adept. The Sage, the Scholar, and the Saint leap with joy. The path of the Unsullied advances further. You only need to acquire the Power Adept to undergo sublimation.'
"...Power Adept..." Su Chen stared at the pop-up panel. Although it still wasn't enough, it revealed the na of the final class.
"So it's the Essence of Spirituality," Sang Hanhai also leaned over to take a look and shook his head. "That's going to be tough."
"What is the Essence of Spirituality?" Su Chen asked; he had never heard of the stuff before.
"It's a special material birthed in the Nether Realm, ford in places where massive amounts of spiritual remnants pile up. It's extrely beneficial to a professional's spiritual body," Sang Hanhai explained.
Su Chen asked the key question, "Is that stuff easy to find?"
Sang Hanhai shot him a side-glance. "What do you think? The Nether Realm is mysterious, unpredictable, and laden with danger. A major reason why ntal-type professionals are so rare is precisely because the trouble of the Trial of Whispers is incredibly difficult to bypass."
Seeing Su Chen's glum expression, Sang Hanhai cracked a grin. "However, the Trial of Whispers is one thing, and searching for an item in the Nether Realm is another. The two are different."
"Oh?" Su Chen's spirits lifted as he looked over.
Pu Zhenghong picked up the conversation. "The Nether Realm, as we call it, is like the shadow of the world—two sides of the sa coin."
"Preliminary theories suggest that it is the convergence point where the spiritual bodies of living beings annihilate. Entering it with the spiritual body of a living person is like dropping a red-hot block of iron into cold water."
"And the reason the Trial of Whispers is a trial is because it forcibly and massively broadcasts your spiritual aura to induce greater danger."
"During the Trial of Whispers, your spiritual body is out of control; ti and space are all blurred, making it impossible to predict what you might encounter."
"I see..." Su Chen instantly understood. Entering the Nether Realm under normal circumstances wouldn't be like the Trial of Whispers where everything was topsy-turvy, drastically lowering the danger of stumbling across an Evil God.
Pu Zhenghong continued, "If you aren't undergoing the Trial of Whispers, you can also use external thods to conceal your spiritual aura, further reducing the risk of being discovered."
However, seeing Su Chen letting out a breath of relief, he couldn't help but add a warning, "Don't lower your guard just because of that. The Nether Realm is ultimately not a good place. If you stay too long, you yourself might end up assimilated."
"Moreover, there are maddened Nether Realm creatures in there, any one of which could easily kill you."
Regarding the dangers of that place, Su Chen was naturally well aware. He didn't think finding the Essence of Spirituality would be a simple task.
Sang Hanhai shook his head and said, "The Essence of Spirituality is rare, and it's also beneficial to Nether Realm creatures, making it very hard to find."
"Furthermore, every ti you enter the Nether Realm, the location is different, making sustained searching very difficult. It basically relies on luck. Given the dangers of the Nether Realm, let alone low-tier professionals, even high-tier ones wouldn't willingly go in unless absolutely necessary."
So troubleso. Su Chen couldn't help asking, "Did that Hong Xuan from Yuandu advance with this class?"
Sang Hanhai's expression turned quite solemn. "Not just the Spirit Adept, I suspect he has also advanced as the Scholar and the Sage to achieve that unprecedented Crimson talent."
"Then how did Yuandu find the Essence of Spirituality in the Nether Realm? Do they have so secret thod?" Su Chen pondered.
Sang Hanhai sneered, "Who knows? Maybe it was thanks to the help of the Evil God Cults."
"That's enough," Pu Zhenghong scolded. Groundless accusations like that would only put them at a disadvantage if repeated too often. "It might just be a thod unique to Yuandu."
Su Chen's heart stirred. "The Evil God Cults can exert influence within the Nether Realm?"
"Of course," Sang Hanhai replied, his volu noticeably lower after being reprimanded. "The Nether Realm is suspected to be the location of the Evil Gods' true bodies. Many thods utilized by Evil God Cultists require the Nether Realm to be executed. Even the entities within the Nether Realm wouldn't dare provoke them."
"So there's such a thing." Su Chen was quite surprised. Did that an if he disguised himself as another priest, he could also travel unimpeded?
With that thought, he asked again, "Have you two heard of any classes similar to the Spirit Adept or Sage, like... perhaps a Berserker, or a Power Adept?"
Pu Zhenghong and Sang Hanhai exchanged glances and laughed simultaneously. "Where would such a class be so easily found?"
"If they truly exist, they're probably inside the ruins. Every Saint Word Stone recording these classes was excavated from those ruins."
The ruins left behind by the previous Great Exalted?
He pondered this inwardly, bidding his farewells. Before leaving, he didn't forget to remind them,
"Elder Pu, Elder Sang, if you manage to obtain any relatively strong classes from Yuandu's hands that et my criteria for advancent, rember to let know."
Sang Hanhai pointed a finger at him. "You still haven't forgotten about that. Don't worry, you made a major contribution today. If there really are any strong classes, you won't be left out."
Only then did Su Chen turn and leave. Sang Hanhai retracted his expression, looking at Pu Zhenghong with considerable worry. "Yuandu wants the 'Saint' so badly, and they are still trying to elevate Hong Xuan's talent. Their goal is probably that class."
"What if it is?" Pu Zhenghong asked in return.
Sang Hanhai stated grimly, "Then we definitely cannot let Yuandu succeed. The blood war only stopped ten years ago. Both my father and your father died at the hands of the people from Yuandu."
Pu Zhenghong remained silent for a mont and sighed. "We only possess a fragnted stone slab. We don't even know the na of that class. It's not sothing we can stop just by saying we want to stop it."
"Furthermore..." Pu Zhenghong paused here, closed his mouth, shook his head, and walked out.
...
Guest House. Usually there were very few people here. Delegations from lower-ranked cities weren't qualified to stay here; it was built specifically for the other three cities. On typical days, one wouldn't see a single silhouette here in a year or two.
Tang Chen alighted from the hovercar with a gloomy expression. When he bumped into people from Yuandu who greeted him along the way, he didn't utter a single word, heading straight for a certain room in the Guest House.
Knocking on the door and entering, Wu Chenpei, who was inside the room, saw Tang Chen's gloomy face and imdiately understood. "You failed?"
"Mm." Tang Chen nodded heavily.
"The Class Decoding Departnt has grown smarter. After we scamd them once last ti, it's only normal that they wouldn't fall for it again this ti." Wu Chenpei had anticipated this and shook his head, "I thought that with Pu Zhenghong present this ti, they'd have the confidence to bet again."
"It's not that we didn't bet." Tang Chen's expression turned even uglier. "Our trick got seen through. The Class Decoding Departnt will probably report this to the Council of Elders soon to demand an explanation from us."
"Discovered?" A glimr of shock and doubt flashed across Wu Chenpei's face. "They discovered that there's no class recorded on that piece of Saint Word Stone? How is that possible?"
"The Chief Priest of the Black Buddha confidently guaranteed that no one could possibly discover it."
"Damn it!" Tang Chen gnashed his teeth. "I don't know what happened either, but it was just seen through. Pu Zhenghong even wanted to call people from the other two cities as witnesses to decipher it together."
"He was that certain." Wu Chenpei hadn't expected this, his brows knitting together. "Pu Zhenghong is growing more and more monstrous. Could his research into the Divine Language have truly produced so clues? He's rely a 5th-tier professional."
"Not only that," Tang Chen snorted coldly. "I don't know where he found him, but Pu Zhenghong called out so young man to deliberately expose it, effectively slapping us in the face."
On the way back, he had thought it through. Pu Zhenghong's move was incredibly vicious—it was pure revenge for blocking their gate last ti.
Moreover, if they had made a mistake, he could have just pinned the bla on the young man. It was exceedingly sly.
"A young man?" Wu Chenpei didn't take this to heart and rely sighed. "This is troubleso now."
If the Class Decoding Departnt had simply refused the bet, they still had backup plans. But having their dirty tricks exposed ant that acquiring the 'Saint' would likely beco exponentially more difficult.
Crucially, their backup plan was now rendered unusable. Not only that, but they would also have to resolve the ss left behind from their previous bet.
"What about things on your end?" Tang Chen paced about irritably, asking Wu Chenpei.
"Chong Jingtian refused," Wu Chenpei replied.
"Short-sighted." Tang Chen was similarly unsurprised. "If we hadn't suddenly discovered the people from the Royal Court ten years ago, Chong Jingtian would have always been a hardliner who insisted on unifying our three cities by force."
"The threat is right before his eyes, yet he refuses to grasp the only saving straw."
Wu Chenpei stated calmly, "Unless we make Chong Jingtian see reality clearly, he definitely won't be willing to compromise. He would rather test out every single person in his Adjudication Court one by one than agree to our terms."
"The Adjudication Court..." Tang Chen shook his head. "Chong Jingtian will never understand just how much we've sacrificed to nurture Hong Xuan."
"He will understand very soon," Wu Chenpei said softly. "I heard he set up a challenge arena last year. It's quite interesting. I'll have Hong Xuan go give it a try."
Before coming here, they had already readied contingencies. Regardless of whether Chong Jingtian agreed or not, they had a way to achieve their goal.
Thinking of this, Tang Chen's face darkened once more. Finding out that their trick with the Saint Word Stone had been discovered was truly unexpected. He asked in a low voice, "What about the 'Saint'?"
With their dirty trick exposed and their backup plan rendered useless, they could only brainstorm new thods.
Wu Chenpei seed to already have an idea. "It will also be done on this arena. At worst, we'll just have Hong Xuan act a bit more arrogant."
...
When Su Chen returned to his residence, Gu Bing was already waiting for him at the door.
"How did it go?" Su Chen asked as he pushed the door open and walked in.
Gu Bing followed him inside, smiling helplessly. "We've already asked every single family and organization, big and small, in all of Yingfeng. The one with the lowest level of contamination is still a thirty-percent bloodshot Eye of the Thunder God."
"Thirty-percent bloodshot? That won't do..." Su Chen shook his head and invited Gu Bing to sit on the sofa. Zero had already served tea, according to past habits.
The so-called Eye of the Thunder God was actually harvested from a 4th-tier mutant beast known as the 'One-Eyed Thunder Beast'.
The One-Eyed Thunder Beast was completely hairless, its entire body covered in scales wreathed in the lightning elent. It had six legs and only a single eye on its head, possessing no other organs.
Living in areas perpetually blanketed by thunderstorms, their primary ans of attack relied entirely on the vertical eye on their forehead, which could shoot out terrifyingly powerful beams of lightning.
However, the mont it initiated an attack, its vertical eye would beco severely bloodshot.
After it died, its blood circulation would halt, and the fresh blood would stagnate and fuse with the vertical eye, making it impossible to remove. This tainted blood drastically reduced the value of the vertical eye.
To acquire a pure Eye of the Thunder God, one had to abruptly kill the beast before it exhibited any attacking behavior.
This required the strength to utterly crush it. Furthermore, a One-Eyed Thunder Beast was already a 4th-tier mutant beast to begin with, and its physique naturally gave it an advantage in battle. An ordinary 4th-tier professional couldn't do anything against it.
Adding onto that, these things were pack creatures living in environnts advantageous to them. The mont an enemy was discovered, they would swarm and attack together.
At the very least, a 5th-tier professional needed to make a move to obtain the vertical eye, and even then, there would be varying degrees of contamination. A purely untainted Eye of the Thunder God hadn't appeared in Yingfeng for years.
"There really are none in the city. Nobody should be hiding it," Gu Bing said helplessly.
I can only get soone to fetch it for then. Su Chen's eyes flickered. The only 5th-tier professional he had a decent relationship with right now was Senior Brother Teng Liang.
Asking him for help certainly wouldn't be rejected. However, while acquiring an Eye of the Thunder God might be easy, securing a completely unblemished Eye of the Thunder God would prove significantly more troubleso.
Teng Liang's giant transformation was undoubtedly ferocious, but it was also incredibly loud and flashy.
"It would be best to have a 5th-tier professional skilled in concealnt and assassination, or one with a special imprisonnt ability, handle this. Or simply completely crush it with a 6th-tier." Su Chen ran through the options in his mind, but couldn't identify a suitable target.
As for a 6th-tier professional, he didn't even need to consider it; they were all Chief Inquisitors. Even if Chong Jingtian wanted to deploy them, he would need an adequate justification.
"Or maybe I can just hire several 5th-tier professionals." Su Chen deliberated, asking Gu Bing, "Under normal circumstances, what price do you have to pay to get a 5th-tier professional to act?"
Gu Bing pondered for a mont. "5th-tier professionals are already at the Director level in the Adjudication Court, and Deputy Ministers in the Security Bureau. They're big shots. When they make a move, favors account for a massive portion of the paynt."
Such people certainly wouldn't lack money; they cared more about 'face'.
"Owing favors, huh." Su Chen thought about it. He could contact Cheng Lang, but that guy might not necessarily be willing to make a trip out of Yingfeng just for him.
"I'll wait a few days and ask Senior Brother Teng Liang; there will always be a way." Thinking this, Su Chen asked Gu Bing again, "How far away is the place where One-Eyed Thunder Beasts live from Yingfeng?"
"The closest place is 'Wind and Thunder Valley.' A round trip would take about two months," Gu Bing recalled.
Obtaining a specific tifra, Su Chen beca thoughtful. He chatted with Gu Bing a bit longer and learned sothing entirely unexpected.
"The Wei family contacted you, offering to sell a portion of their assets to at a bargain?"
"Mhm," Gu Bing nodded. "Not just you, they also contacted Wei Yufan and the others. However, the share we can acquire is quite substantial. The Wei family was bound to downsize sooner or later anyway. Their current thinking is likely to earn so good favor."
"Coupled with the past dispute between Chief Inquisitor Wei and Elder Xia... So, do you want to take it?"
Wei Yinshuo was dead, and Chu Xuan was dead, but Xia Hanshi was still alive, and Su Chen was still alive. The Wei family had no choice but to brace themselves.
"Sure, take it," Su Chen replied casually. As long as the Wei family wasn't actively seeking death, he was too lazy to feud with them. "After you take the assets, help manage them."
Gu Bing nodded.
(End of this chapter)
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