Once the "clean-up" was done, the silence finally felt earned. The Azure Dragon team's Space Rings were added to our pile—a poetic justice for their greed.
I walked over to the edge of the cliff where the Storm-Call Commander had fallen. My Soul Vessel was nearly overflowing. I looked at the forty Commander Essences—ten from each of the four bosses—swirling in the spiritual dimension. Last commander only produced soul fragment.
I looked at my brothers. They were battered, exhausted, and proud.
"Brother Shen," I whispered, pulling a small, glowing vial from my bag. It was filled with a concentrated mana-recovery fluid I'd bought in Shanghai, but I'd secretly infused it with a tiny fraction of the "excess" soul energy from the vessel. "Drink this. It'll help."
Shen took it, ruffling my hair with a tired hand. "You're a good kid, Yuzi. Let's get off this mountain before I fall asleep standing up."
As we began the trek down, I looked at the stats of my Soul Vessel. The wealth was staggering, but the lesson was more important: In the wilderness, the monsters aren't just the ones with wings.
The descent from the Sky-Shatter Ravine was far quieter than the ascent. The Azure Dragon mages were gone—not just defeated, but erased from the mountain's history. Li Shen's "clean-up" was surgical, leaving nothing for the Qinling vultures but scorched stone and the lingering scent of ozone.
By the time we reached the lower altitudes where the air began to feel thick and warm again, the adrenaline had completely evaporated. Li Wei was leaning heavily on Li Jun, his footsteps dragging against the shale. Even the Steel-Hide Commander, normally a tireless sentinel, had been unsummoned back to the spiritual dimension to heal the deep gouges in its metallic flanks.
"We aren't stopping at the Cloud-Reach Outpost," Li Shen commanded, his voice sounding like grinding gravel. "The Maritime Association will have scouts there. We push through to the valley, rent a private transport, and get back to Bo City. Now."
....
Two weeks later, the gates of Bo City felt like the entrance to a sanctuary. But we didn't go back to our old lifestyle. With the staggering wealth gathered from the five Commanders—and the "extra" spoils stripped from the Azure Dragon team's high-grade Space Rings—the Li family was no longer just a group of talented brothers. We were a rising power.
Using the stolen resources and a fraction of the liquidated Warrior Essences, Li Shen purchased an abandoned manor on the outskirts of the city. It was a massive, walled estate that sat on a natural intersection of elemental ley lines.
"This isn't just a house, Yuzi," Li Shen said, standing in the center of a courtyard that smelled of ancient cedar and damp earth. "This is the Li Family Training Hall. From today on, we don't rely on the Hunter Union's facilities. We build our own."
....
The "Laundering" of the 50 Essences
I had a problem. I had fifty Commander-level Soul Essences—a fortune that could buy a small country—and no way to explain them to my brothers without revealing the "10x Multiplier."
One evening, while the brothers were recovering in the medicinal baths, I approached Li Shen in the library. I held a stack of high-quality Soul Containers I'd "found" in the Azure Dragon leader's Space Ring.
"Brother Shen," I whispered, tugging at his sleeve. "When the Storm-Call Commander died... and those others... the Soul Vessel got really hot. I think... I think it pulled in more than we thought."
I slid five containers across the table. Each one glowed with the intense, pulsing blue light of a Commander Essence.
"I found these in the vessel's reserve," I lied, my heart hammering. "And I found these in the Azure Dragon rings." I added ten more.
Shen froze. He stared at the fifteen Commander Essences on the table. To him, this was already an impossible haul—the luck of a century. He didn't suspect a multiplier; he simply thought the Qinling battlefield had been a "Soul Well," a rare phenomenon where the density of death allows more souls to manifest than usual.
....
Inside his room, Yuzi sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes tightly shut. Within the vast expanse of his spiritual world, the heavy, ancient-looking seal suppressing his Magic System began to spiderweb with glowing cracks.
It had been fourteen months since their expedition to the Qinling Mountain Range. That year and a half had been a blur of blood and iron; through relentless hunting missions, the entire team had pushed their primary spells to the Level 5 tier. Yet, they were still biding their time before hunting a Monarch level creature.
The reason was simple: preparation.
Li Shen, Li Wei, and Li Jun were currently deep in seclusion, wrestling with the chaotic energy of their Super Level Star Palaces. Nearly a year ago, Yuzi's luck had peaked during his third Lottery Wheel spin, yielding two Twin-Element Flowers.
The first flower, a crystalline bloom of Ice and Wind, was split between Li Shen and Li Jun. The second was a stroke of divine luck for Li Wei, a Fire and Lightning flower. Since Li Wei possessed both element, the energy resonated perfectly, catapulting him into Super Level in both element simultaneously.
Furthermore, these flowers evolved their Soul Seeds into Heavenly Seeds. While they lacked a "Forbidden Realm" domain, the raw destructive power was now sufficient to let them stand their ground against veteran Super Mages or a Lesser Monarch.
_____
Back in the quiet of his room, the seal on Yuzi's spiritual sea finally shattered. The moment the suppression vanished, his Star Dust began to riot.
"What's happening?!" Yuzi gasped.
In his mind's eye, his Star Dust wasn't just glowing—it was expanding, the magical density thickening until it felt viscous. Just as the pressure became unbearable, the turbulence vanished. Silence returned to his spiritual world.
"System, report! What just happened?"
[Notification: Host's magic has fully awakened. Previously, your magic was in a 'Suppressed State' as the System needed to stabilize the energy before it manifested. Host is advised to check his status immediately.]
Yuzi's heart hammered against his ribs. "You mean... my Fire element, which already has a 2.5x Spirit Seed, is now fundamentally stronger?"
He did the math quickly. If his base magic density had doubled, his Level 1 Basic Spell would now hit with 5 times the force of a standard mage. He could potentially incinerate a Servant-class beast with a single Fire blast: Initial Level without even breaking a sweat.
Once his breathing leveled out, Yuzi began to strategize. His brothers would be ready to emerge from seclusion in a month. He couldn't afford to lag behind.
'I need to master these new stars,' he thought, his eyes flashing with determination. 'I need to push my Fire Element to Level 3 of the basic tier'
For an ordinary mage, such a jump in a month would be a pipe dream. But Yuzi wasn't ordinary. With a Sacred-Grade Stardust Magic Tool and a Sacred-Grade Cultivation Amplifier equipped, his cultivation speed was effectively 500% faster than a genius at a top magic school.
To Be Continue.....
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