Chapter 319: Chapter 190: Eliminating Hidden Dangers

Woah!

Gu Zheng was pleasantly surprised.

He tried using Spirit Capturing and, to his surprise, found the liquid in the Tripod Cauldron could actually be converted into Demon Points.

And the conversion yielded over thirty-five hundred Demon Points.

’This must be the Energy Liquid that the Corpse Flood Dragon has accumulated over countless years to refine Puppets...’

Gu Zheng thoughtfully examined the liquid in the Tripod Cauldron, which now looked like clear water.

SHH~

With a flick of his hand, the Human Emperor’s Seal Artifact Embryo appeared.

He used the Human Emperor’s Seal Artifact Embryo to sense the Three-legged Tripod.

While confirming the Tripod Cauldron was genuine, he also checked to ensure that the dynastic fortune the Celestial South Tripod had gathered over the past ten thousand years was not damaged or depleted!

The Yong Family had obtained this Tripod Cauldron, but they only thought its purpose was to purify and gather energy.

That was why they placed it in this cavern to concoct Corpse Puppet Liquid.

They had no idea that the true purpose of the Nine Tripods was to gather dynastic fortune!

It was understandable, come to think of it.

Fortune was a mysterious thing—ethereal and intangible, impossible to see or touch.

Only those skilled in Divination and Deduction could sense a fraction of it with the help of Marvels.

If Gu Zheng didn’t have the Human Emperor’s Seal Artifact Embryo, he wouldn’t have discovered the true power of the Nine Tripods either.

The Yong Family’s ignorance saved Gu Zheng a lot of trouble.

SHH!

He retracted the Human Emperor’s Seal into his body.

The Divine Wondrous-wrapped Celestial South Tripod was also put into his Storage Pouch. The clear water inside was naturally poured out.

He took a look around the stone chamber.

He saw numerous medicinal herbs, human blood, beast blood, and special minerals.

CRACKLE~!

Gu Zheng glanced at them, then used Fire Manipulation to ignite the materials for refining Corpse Puppets, which began to burn fiercely.

Amid the spreading smoke, he turned and strode out of the narrow passage.

He followed the path he came on and exited the cave.

SWISH SWISH SWISH~!

Blades shot out and danced through the air, slaughtering the Corpse Puppets guarding the cave entrance.

These Corpse Puppets hadn’t been activated; they were motionless, allowing Gu Zheng to slice them to pieces.

Finally, he set them ablaze.

WHOOSH~ WHOOSH~

SWOOSH!

He leaped into the air, soaring high into the sky.

Gu Zheng flew in a straight line north, back toward Jing Country.

A quarter of an hour after he left, a group of men passed through the miasma, entered the valley, and arrived at the cave entrance.

Seeing the Corpse Puppets fallen and hacked to pieces, the lead man’s expression changed drastically.

"Quick, get inside!"

With a wave of his hand, the man’s figure flickered as he rushed into the smoke-filled cave.

Then, he saw more Corpse Puppets—no, all of the Corpse Puppets had been sliced to bits, completely destroyed.

The Corpse Flood Dragon had also been killed, chopped even more finely.

When he finally found Yong Xingdian’s body, the man could no longer hold back and roared at the heavens.

"Who!? Who did this!?"

His roar echoed through the underground space.

WHOOSH WHOOSH~

The smoke pervading the area, under the pull of a Divine Wondrous power, gathered into a ball, clearing the air.

"Enough."

An aged voice followed. An old man in the group, his thick brows furrowed, walked out of the stone chamber where the Celestial South Tripod had been kept.

"Destroying all the Corpse Puppets and killing the Corpse Flood Dragon—none of that was the goal."

Hmm?

The man, filled with rage, was taken aback. He turned to the old man. "Elder Xie, what do you mean?"

"The intruder’s real target was that Black Tripod!"

The old man stroked the beard on his chin and spoke in astonishment, "Everything else was burned, but the Black Tripod vanished. It’s obvious the intruder took it. Heh, we’ve had the Black Tripod for over a century, and we never knew it had another purpose?"

"That Tripod Cauldron has another purpose?" the man asked, stunned. "What is it?"

"I don’t know."

The old man shook his head. "Only the one who took it knows!"

As he said this, a strange glint flashed in the old man’s eyes.

...

...

Jing Country.

Fengzhou, atop a Nameless Mountain.

Gu Zheng once again took out the Human Emperor’s Seal Artifact Embryo to sense the whereabouts of the Northern Mountain Tripod.

The Northern Mountain Tripod was lost somewhere in the territory of Kang Country, on the other side of the Celestial Gate Mountain Range.

When he tried to sense it, he discovered that, like the Sword South Tripod, the Northern Mountain Tripod could not be locked onto.

’Is the distance too great? Or has it also been hidden by the Fu Family in their Ancestral Land Spirit Realm?’

He couldn’t find an answer, so he could only give up for now.

He tried sensing the Tripod Cauldrons scattered in the other Daos, but there was no response from them either.

This time, it was most likely due to the great distance.

’The Southern Mountain Tripod is in the Royal Palace, but the locations of the others are unknown...’

’Alright, then!’

Gu Zheng suppressed his stray thoughts, put away the Human Emperor’s Seal, and flew toward Luozhou.

Collecting the Nine Tripods couldn’t be rushed, and getting anxious was useless.

He still had plenty of time before he had to escort the Ninth Princess to the Western Celestial Dao.

In the meantime, Gu Zheng planned to enter a gateway, take a trip to the Demon Realm, and slay Demon Fiends to gather the two hundred thousand Demon Points he needed for his next breakthrough!

The two third-rank gateways in Fengzhou were more or less cleared out.

So he would go to another province, the closest of which was Luozhou.

Upon arriving in Luozhou, he first sought out Zuo Lingfeng to pay a visit to the Commander of the Luozhou Demon Slayer Bureau, Yuanqian Mountain.

"My master had to leave on business. He’s not in Luozhou," Zuo Lingfeng explained. "It’s about Zhong Zhengxiao hunting me down."

"...After you returned, did the King of Baoshan make any moves?" Gu Zheng asked, understanding. "Did Zhong Zhengxiao send anyone else to cause trouble for you?"

"No."

Zuo Lingfeng shook his head. "The first thing I did when I got back was find my master. After he heard what happened, he immediately went to find Zhong Zhengxiao."

"...And the result?" Gu Zheng’s interest was piqued. "Did Commander Yuan heavily injure Zhong Zhengxiao?"

"I don’t know."

Zuo Lingfeng replied calmly, "Master hasn’t returned, so I don’t know what the outcome was."

"Haha, no matter what, Zhong Zhengxiao is bound to suffer a heavy loss this time."

Gu Zheng couldn’t help but laugh.

The feud between Zuo Lingfeng and Zhong Tiande, tracing back to the very beginning, started with Zhong Tiande being in the wrong.

Now Zhong Tiande was dead, and Zuo Lingfeng had been hunted by Zhong Zhengxiao, falling into the Nine Heavens Shadow Realm and barely escaping with his life.

Although it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, the hatred between them had become too tangled to unravel.

It could only be settled through the gamesmanship of their respective backers.

Namely, the Kao Mountain King and Commander Yuanqian Mountain’s sister—the queen from two generations prior, who also possesses a King’s Body.

And at the King’s Body realm, both of them are still very much alive.