Star Gate

Chapter 703: Gains and Reports (II)

The more Li Hao looked at the storage rings, the more shocked he grew. Hot damn! These guys were so rich!

There weren’t many treasures in the North Sea King’s ring; the one he was looking at next likely belonged to the Steppe Prince. As one of the nine princes of the royal family, there were so many treasures inside this ring that it blinded Li Hao!

It went without saying that there was an abundance of mysterious power stones in the rings. There were so many that he couldn’t be bothered to count them all. It might have something to do with the royal family excavating the ruins of Skystar City. There had been large mines there to maintain the operations of the eight cities.

The key difference was that there were a lot of books in the Steppe Prince’s ring. Li Hao casually flipped open one of them—they were all of martial dao secret arts! The personage who’d established the Skystar Troops had apparently deeply researched martial dao. It looked like he was a scholar.

Li Hao estimated there to be at least one hundred books of martial secret arts in the ring, and they had to be of uncommon knowledge to be collected by the prince. The young man even saw some that were famous in the Silver Moon martial world.

“Iron Shirt... Flies Over Grass...” His eyes widened. Flies Over Grass was Wu Xinghong, Wu Chao’s grandfather. It was said that Celestial had killed him back in the day and seized his secret art. So it was in the Steppe Prince’s storage ring!

So... did the Steppe Prince hire Celestial, or is he one of their backers?

Li Hao’s thoughts then turned to Willow Sword. Did Willow Sword’s death have to do with the Steppe Prince? The guy seemed to have been collecting Silver Moon secret arts.

Li Hao swept his gaze over the books. He also saw the secret Footjab art. Their representative character was Madame Bai, the woman who married into the Bai family. The Bais had been the city lords of the Silver Moon capital in the past. Did this mean that Madame Bai had volunteered her family’s secret art?

The Bais certainly looked to have ties to the royal family if they’d offered up even their secret art. His senior sister and her husband Hu Dingfang were involved with the Bais...

Li Hao furrowed his brows and put everything out of his mind. There were also sets of black armor in the prince’s ring. They looked very similar to his back armor, but weren’t the same. Li Hao immediately thought of the Black Armaturas of the royal family!

This armor should belong to them. There weren’t many, just three hundred sets. He also had a thousand sets of Voidbreaker armor on hand.

......

Li Hao went through each individual ring and took a deep breath. He didn’t look at any of the other treasures—a golden booklet manifested in his hand. This caught his eye the most out of all the treasures in the pile.

It came from Hu Xiao’s ring and a nearly identical booklet appeared in his other hand. This one came from the old Duke Xu. Two golden booklets that were nearly the same! But there were minute differences. Both of them carried hints of an ancient air, while on the first one was written—Battle Methods of Core Origin: Offense.

A smaller line of text could be found beneath the title. Written by the Chens of the New Martial era.

The Chens, New Martial. A thought occurred to Li Hao as he knew of a Chen powerhouse who’d written down the basics of sword methods in flowing calligraphy. Headmaster Chen was skilled in the Streamflow Sword Method. Which Chens did this core origin battle method belong to? Were they actually the same family? Was this the method that the old ministers had utilized before?

He looked at the second golden booklet—Battle Methods of Core Origin: Break. Another small line of text could be found beneath it. Written by the Jiangs of the New Martial era. Plainly, these core origin battle methods weren’t the work of one family, but of multiple. Since one was with the old duke and another with Hu Xiao, then the other ministers might possess some as well.

Li Hao was slightly confused. Were they still exploring the same ruin? Otherwise, why would the Steadfast Duke of the east have one too?

Such questions swirling in his mind, he flipped open one of them and seemed to be transported to a scene within. An incredibly ferocious existence stood in front of him, so strong that it was unbelievable!

“The Jiang family’s break incantation can break anything and everything! This king is titled the Battle King and is the king of battle for the human race!” An ancient voice projected into Li Hao’s mind.

The Battle King! An ancient powerhouse!

A rumble echoed in Li Hao’s mind as the skies and earth fractured—a break character appeared in blood. It broke through all obstacles with dao and reduced everything to dust.

The scene then brightened in front of Li Hao’s eyes and he returned to reality. The Battle King, the Jiangs, the break incantation! The golden booklets were ancient marital heritages!

Li Hao was quite taken aback. Compared to what this one had just demonstrated, the old ministers had brought forth... trash! They insulted the battle method!

“Teacher says that this is the battle method of the ancient city called Tranquil Star. Xu Qing told me last time that the Xus excavated the city, so what’s with the nine ministries? Are they seizing the property of the Xus? Or are the nine ministries and Xus exploring the ruins together?” Li Hao was confused. He understood to a certain extent that these methods originated from Tranquil Star, but why did the nine ministries have them?

The martial universities!

That’s right, Battle Heaven had mentioned that the universities of old sought to embrace all knowledge and powerhouses back in the day. When any secret arts were created, they quickly disseminated the update as opposed to keeping it for themselves. In that case, it was normal for a secret art to be found anywhere it was found. Perhaps there had been a renowned martial university on Skystar Island.

Two premier secret arts... Li Hao flushed, but then quickly frowned with doubt as to whether or not he could practice them. They seemed to be part of the martial dao path—no, the core origin path. They may not be a good match with him. The old ministers had brought powerful attacks to bear, but theirs lacked the feeling of invincibility that should’ve been present.

“I’ll know if I give it a try.” Li Hao looked excitedly at the golden booklets. There may be more of them, possibly many more.

“Arf arf!” Panther barked, seeming to ask if the gains were great.

“The gains are very, very great!” Li Hao laughed. “There’s more than five million mysterious power stones alone. There’s only a dozen origin weapons, but the lowest is arcane level and there are a few earth levels. There’s not that much Water of Life either—fifty drops at most. There’s also a random assortment of other stuff. Are you happy with that?”

“Arf arf arf!” Panther was confused and seemed to be saying, why is there so little?

“Don’t look at me, almost all of the newly ascended Arcanus were poor as hell. Only Hu Xiao and the old duke were slightly richer.” Li Hao looked back with resignation.

But even so, they were still Arcanus and as such, very rich! Strictly speaking, however, that bastard Yellow Dragon had more mysterious power stones in his storage ring than any of them. He alone contributed eight hundred thousand pieces. That bastard was too good at seizing wealth!

Li Hao took a quick count—with nearly two million stones that he already had, his stones reached a total of more than seven million. He’d given away nearly twenty origin weapons before, but now he had more at forty high ranked ones.

When it came to Water of Life, he didn’t have much left after gifting some to the old seniors. With a sudden gain of fifty drops, he was rich again.

None of this even took into account the two golden booklets and hundreds of books of secret arts. There was also plenty of ancient armor. Apart from the Steppe Prince, the old duke held one thousand sets from the Voidbreakers, making it two thousand sets from the Voidbreakers for Li Hao.

He was a member of the Battle Heaven Army, but he actually had the most Voidbreaker armor.

“I have too many mysterious power stones now...” He scratched his head. He didn’t have use for so many! He wouldn’t be able to use them all even if he burned them daily for sword energy.

The little sword had also gotten a bit picky and wasn’t willing to absorb energy from these stones. The higher level ones were fine, but the lower level ones were on the outs.

The little tree... General Pagoda!

The young man suddenly thought of the old tree in Battle Heaven and the little tree in the abandoned palace. Director General Wang of the ancient city had told him that the city lacked life energy. That situation wouldn’t be rectified until General Pagoda awoke, but it would take too much energy for that to be accomplished.

The little tree shouldn’t be as strong as General Pagoda, but even it required vast sums of energy. It went without saying how much the old general would. At that time, Li Hao had wanted to cry when he fed a dozen pieces to the tree, but now he had seven million!

“If I go back to Battle Heaven now... will I be able to awaken the city?”

He was rich as hell with seven million pieces, wasn’t he? Granted, if he went to the little tree now, he might actually be able to fully revitalize the tree since it probably needed less than General Pagoda.

Various ideas ran through his mind and he lost himself in thought as three red balls materialized in his hand. Blood pearls!

The three elders had been astounding as they all possessed peak metamorphosis power. He hadn’t been the one to extract these; Sky Sword had thrown them to Li Hao.

Sky Sword had killed one of the three elders, Li Hao the other two. The young man hadn’t paid attention to the possibility of scarlet shadows when he killed them. The three seemed to have been in Sky Sword’s body all along. He was so ferocious that he moved around like he wasn’t being invaded by three shadows.

Now they were blood pearls.

Li Hao had wanted to lay hands on one before, but dropped the thought after becoming an Arcanus. Now that he had one... should he make a trip back to Silver Moon? Whether it was the little tree, Battle Heaven, or the diagram of the eight trigrams in Skystar City... They were all in Silver Moon!

He grasped vast riches in his hand right now. Perhaps... it was time to make a trip back.

“Yang Shan hasn’t come back yet... but it should be soon.”

Yang Shan was only a metamorphosis and left on the day of the executions. It’d been four days—he might not be able to make it to the North Sea in four days. Who knew if he’d received the news yet? Since the North Sea King was no more, the previous agreement was naturally null and void.

Perhaps I should visit Battle Heaven again...

He could sit down with the director general, but he could forget about that commander in the army. He didn’t seem to like the young man that much, the director general was much easier to talk to. Now that Li Hao had money, perhaps he could go back for some tutelage.

Granted, who knew if the city would let him in now that he was a supernatural?

He was also in rather dangerous straits in Skystar City. It was better if he could improve some more or at the very least, obtain some more treasure to help others improve.