Chapter 735: Opening the Wisteria Cache
Mi Fang’s and He Gai Tou’s negotiation finished that same day.
Long Fu would challenge Shi Liu, then secretly supply capital to allow He Gai Tou to play the market and gain much more money.
Mi Fang would transport the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps’ capital, and with his own name, wager that Long Fu would defeat Shi Liu within three rounds.
This awed He Gai Tou immensely.
“Long Fu is indeed hiding his strength; he is actually confident that he can beat Shi Liu within three rounds!”
“Long Fu is also very vindictive. Last time, the Ice Prison’s representative Bing Yang made things difficult for him, and now it is his turn to target the Ice Prison.”
“He’s warning me.”
“What an overbearing guy…”
Hei Gai Tou understood that the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps had deliberately sent Mi Fang to negotiation as another layer of deterrence.
He Gai Tou was not like Mi Fang; he was a lone figure with no patron.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have used the pretense of gambling to send the Ice Prison Warden bribes every year.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have helped Bing Yang, thereby showing consideration to Mei Lin and the others.
He Gai Tou’s largest backer, or foundation, as the duelists.
“But in the end, that fucking Long Fu became a duelist!” When He Gai Tou heard that news for the first time, he exploded into obscene language.
He Gai You was the second breach in Cang Xu’s plan.
If one were to say Mi Fang was weak natured, then He Gai Tou was weak in influence.
It was precisely why he was a good target.
Long Fu’s challenge to Shi Liu did not attract as much attention as before.
Despite Hei Gai Tou, and the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps secretly applying force to disseminate information and gossip to raise it in the public eye.
This was because the National Ceremony Grand Duel was in its late stage, and the dragonman youngster and Shi Liu were not the only pair of gold levels dueling each other.
There was another important reason, after a period of elimination and filtering, there were many outstanding duelists that distinguished themselves. There were many new faces among them.
The National Ceremony Grand Duel was not held every year; it was a golden event that attracted many outsiders to the Ice Sculpture Kingdom. At the same time, there were many domestic cultivators that were vigorously training and preparing for many years for this.
The dragonman youngster had a massive reputation, but his style and fighting methods were not gaudy, and many spectators felt he was no longer fresh.
The dragonman youngster also sensed this too.
“The greater my reputation, the more helpful it will be for my seizing of the Dueling Godhead.”
“I have to continue to raise my renown, but if I repeat myself, my renown will have reached its limit.”
The dragonman youngster was already hugely popular nationwide, everyone who should know of him did, and those who shouldn’t know of him had at least heard of him.
Next, he should allow his reputation to settle.
Make haters into fans, and make fans into mega fans, make more people acknowledge the dragonman youngster’s power…from the point of view of faith, this was deepening the level of belief!
It was precisely because of this goal that the dragonman youngster challenged Shi Liu.
The Ice Prison’s side hesitated, but Shi Liu was unable to hold himself back.
With the help of deception divine spells, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps used Elder Jiu Jin’s name to quietly negotiate with Shi Liu and acquire the other’s trust, ultimately reaching an agreement.
The duel began.
But for the first time, the dueling arena was empty.
Today, there were three gold level duels happening, the dragonman youngster’s and Shi Liu’s was just one of them.
But the dueling gambling pots were innumerable. It wasn’t just the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps and He Gai Tou priming public opinion, other gambling houses and powers were proficient at such lines of work.
The fight began.
The dragonman youngster charged into Shi Liu.
Shi Liu felt things were anything but reassuring and immediately pulled back.
Battle skill – Dragon Pearl, Exploding Flame!
As the dragonman youngster charged, three dragon pearls appeared and floated around his body.
Ding.
With a dull echo, the dragonman youngster and Shi Liu fought in close quarters.
Then, explosions!
Dragons exploded in succession, lifting a surge of smoke.
This was the first round.
In the second round, Shi Liu shouted, magic power bubbling from his magic crystal as he used his earth type battle skill.
A gigantic wall broke through the smoke, standing tall across the dueling arena.
The dragonman youngster didn’t retreat.
Battle skill – Demolition Fist.
Battle skill technique – Vibration Force!
Demolition Fist exploded like a bomb, and it by itself could blow up a large hole in the earth wall. But with the Vibration Force empowering it, the explosion formed a vibrating ripple.
The powerful, radiating wave quickly covered the entire earth wall.
The earth wall’s surface quickly dried, then turned crispy, flakes of it swirled in the air as cracks expanded, until finally, it turned into earthen fragments of various sizes.
The second round finished.
The dragonman youngster punched through the earth wall defense, and then charged at Shi Liu again, brandishing his fist.
He was too close, and Shi Liu was unable to shift away. The latter growled and charged at him to attack.
Formidable attacks struck the dragonman youngster, but the dragon scales, defensive battle skills, and Tempering Force combined to form a perfect defense.
By contrast, after Shi Liu was struck by the heavy fist, he suddenly went slack and motionless.
The dragonman youngster took advantage of this to plunge his dragon claw into his body, pull out his magic crystal, and crush it in front of everyone.
Without a magic crystal, Shi Liu’s earth elemental body loudly collapsed, turning into countless fragments, steeping the ground everywhere with strong earth elements.
In three rounds, Long Fu had won!
Everyone present was stupefied.
No one anticipated this duel finishing so quickly.
Beforehand, countless experts considered Shi Liu’s and Long Fu’s formidable defenses, all of the surmising that this would be a prolonged war of attrition.
Yet the result was this, within a brief dozen seconds, not only was victory or defeat determined, but also life or death!
“What just happened?”
“It’s over?!”
“Is Shi Liu dead? How can this be? I just sat down.”
The audience fiercely discussed, beginning to rack their brains in analysis.
“Was this a fake match?”
“Idiot! Who would die in a fake match?!”
“Long Fu is not that kind of person! Don’t slander my older brother!! You’re courting death!”
“Don’t tell me Shi Liu was such a weak duelist?”
“No, no that isn’t it. To be selected by the Ice Prison and also be a gold level, how can he be trash?”
“Right, I’ve seen Shi Liu duel several times, and has shown great battle strength.”
Everyone analyzed, and after enthusiastic discussion, they arrived at a verdict – Long Fu had become stronger!
“He has learned Vibration Force, heavens, how is he improving so much?”
“In this duel, he displayed a few forces, but they were focused on defense. Now that he knows Vibration Force, he was able to restrain an elemental’s body.”
“Shi Liu had the bad luck to come across my older brother Long Fu!”
“Were Long Meng’s teachings this good? Long Fu’s progression is simply outrageous.”
“I am starting to be interested in his next duels. We really don’t know what kind of improvements he’ll have in the next duel!!”
Victory
He Gai Tou won, he played the market and earned a hefty sum. Who would have thought before the battle that Long Fu would “kill” Shi Liu within three rounds.
Shi Liu also won. Through multiple deception divine spells, he successfully played dead and indirectly broke out of prison.
The Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps also won. First, they established a beneficial alliance with He Gai Tou, greatly pulling their relationship together. Second, the dragonman youngster’s killing of Shi Liu displayed his aggression and also gave the audience a nice surprise, causing widespread and enthusiastic discussion that improved his reputation. Third, Shi Liu realigned his allegiance. And the Wisteria Cache was within view.
In a nutshell, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps won in three ways.
“We have waited long enough; it is time to open the Wisteria Cache!” The dragonman youngster, Zi Di, and Cang Xu moved together.
Zi Di was in the open, using the form of Gui Teng to take along Jiu Jin, Cong Mang, and Shi Liu.
The dragonman youngster and Cang Xu were supporting in secret.
“The day is finally here.” When Elder Yuan Ci saw the four people, he deeply sighed.
“Lead the way now, if we procrastinate anymore, more parts of the formation will be activated and it’ll become strong, we won’t have another chance after this.” Elder Jiu Jin urged.
As an Alchemy Guild elder, although not part of its core, he had heard about the Millenium Dragon Formation.
Elder Yuan Ci nodded, he had been hiding in the Ten Millenia Ice Lake for years, and these last few days, he could sense the ice lake changing dramatically.
Yuan Ci did not deceive Zi Di, the Wisteria Cache really was hidden on the second ice layer.
The five level zero Wisteria Secret orders were collected together (Zi Di was using Fei She’s, as her order was worth three), and successfully opened the cache’s door.
The hidden chamber was not big; it had a circular wall that had high cabinets built into it.
Each cabinet drawer had a suitcase in it, containing alchemy goods and even more space.
These were silver level suitcases, and each suitcase was stuffed with gold coins, gems, valuable alchemy materials, and more.
There were too many priceless things, an inventory was required.
In the middle of the secret chamber, there was a tabletop one-and-a-half human tall, on which there were five items laid out.
A golden magic storage pouch, a white bone ring, an ice crystal crown, a scarlet cloak, and a small wooden box.
Everyone’s attention was quickly concentrated on these five treasures.
The suitcases were all filled with conventional resources, winning out in sheer quantity. The tabletop in the center was an alchemy module, acting as a seal and a concealment device to protect the five treasures on it.
When Elder Yuan Ci saw the five treasures, his eyes quickly flashed.
He pretended to laugh unconcerned, “Excellent, there are five of us, and as it happens there are five treasures, one per person.”
“This time, me and Jiu Jin contributed the most, so we will pick first.”
Yuan Ci was a silver level magician, but Cong Mang and Shi Liu were both gold levels.
To guard against the others’ objections, and to strengthen his influence, he pulled in Jiu Jin.
Jiu Jin was a gold level magician, and an Alchemy Guild elder, an authentic local bully of the Ice Sculpture Capital.
But unexpectedly, Elder Jiu Jin shook his head, “This kind of allocation is not appropriate, I don’t approve.”
Elder Yuan Ci’s face changed.
Shi Liu and Cong Mang echoed it, “We disagree too.”
Elder Yuan Ci’s expression sank like water, his fears had come to pass, and he couldn’t help but sneer out to probe, “How would you distribute these?”
The result of this probing was that Shi Liu, Jiu Jin, and Cong Mang all looked at Gui Teng ( Zi Di), looking like they were waiting for orders.
Elder Yuan Ci began to drip cold sweat.
He swallowed his saliva, subconsciously taking a few steps back.
Zi Di lightly chuckled, “Don’t be nervous, Elder Yuan Ci, you are useful to us.”
“It seems you have some understanding of these treasures; can you explain them to us?”