Chapter 415: Source Tracing
Back in the Southern Capital, Wu Changfeng led a group to welcome them.
Watching more than three hundred warships arrive in succession, filling over half the air dock of the domain lord's residence, this Void-Refining cultivator born and raised in the southern domain could not hide the happiness in his eyes.
Tens of thousands had left, and hundreds of thousands were returning, with most of them being technical talents the southern domain hungered for.
With this influx of talents, the Southern Capital's productivity would climb another step before long, and once the flying sword business expanded into the spirit treasure bracket, the city's gross output would rise dramatically. Sales worth five or six hundred million a year would be within reach.
"Changfeng." Yaoguang called out, "Are the personnel arrangements in hand?"
"Preparations began months ago, the moment you notified me, Deputy Sect Master. We'll assess their skills shortly and assign them to their posts," Wu Changfeng answered at once.
"Good." Yaoguang nodded.
The Southern Capital was already rolling out the fifteen-level professional skill system he had devised.
Every applicant sat an examination with question banks that Yaoguang had personally prepared; whatever else might be said, for refiners and array casters, the tests measured their true level exactly.
"Only by building up the Southern Capital's industries can we trade for enough cultivation resources, and only with enough resources can our people grow quickly," Yaoguang instructed.
"Yes," Wu Changfeng answered firmly.
As they set to work, the refiners, alchemists, and array casters who had followed Yaoguang, along with the newly pledged Void-Piercing elders and families, swiftly settled down.
Yaoguang delegated his authority outward and freed his own hands. In a world where myriad great powers concentrated in a single person, there was no fear of subordinates jockeying for power, just as most Dao Lords never worried that infighting within their sects might derail their plans.
It was Dao Lords who made top sects, not top sects that produced Dao Lords; the Penglai Immortal Sect was the perfect example. Yaoguang was no Dao Lord yet, but relative to the southern domain, his strength and influence made his status not that different.
***
Relying on the Merchant branch alone for experience is still a bit slow. Yaoguang thought.
Finally finding the time, Yaoguang examined the growth of his branches. He had recently pushed the Array Caster branch to 100% of level 15, and above that it had jammed, just like the Immortal Dao and Refiner branches.
It seemed like only a true transformation of his high-dimensional cognition would unlock the next domain.
In the meantime, between the aggressive industrial expansion in the Southern Capital and the slaying of Jing Yuntian, he had accumulated considerable experience. It was time to choose a new branch to raise.
By logic, the next one up should be the branch I've most looked forward to in the past, the Alchemist branch. But there's no point now. I can simply buy Pure Yang Grand Pills and Void Dao Pills. Besides, alchemy takes time, and I'm already behind on a mountain of refinement orders. I don't have the time to make pills with my own hands.
Yaoguang's gaze settled on the remaining two branches, the Daemon Hunter and Merchant branches.
The Merchant branch's experience growth is hostage to manpower costs. The Daemon Hunter branch, by contrast, may pay out more or less depending on the strength of the daemons hunted, but the returns are far steadier. So...
A flood of experience poured into the Daemon Hunter branch, and the branch grew rapidly in response.
In just a few breaths, Yaoguang watched it bloom and bear fruit several times over, each blossoming yielding a divine ability. But most of these Dao Fruits, which had truly been akin to divine abilities back at lower realms, meant little to him now.
Take the Void's Child trait that had once served him so well: merging with the Limitless Sword granted amplification incomparably beyond it. His mind held Dao Techniques that could easily replace any of these Daemon Hunter divine abilities.
Yet when the Daemon Hunter branch surged in one stretch to what he reckoned as the fourteenth tier, the newly formed Dao Fruit managed to catch his attention.
Source Tracing?
Yaoguang perceived the Dao Fruit's divine ability. This one leaned toward the Dao of karma. The Great Dao of karma surely contained similar Dao Techniques, but Yaoguang had never once encountered a technique representing that Great Dao. That gave this ability a genuine place in his arsenal.
"Through the soul or bloodline, it can trace back to the progenitor at the source..."
It looked like a mere tracking-type ability, but the descendants of a Void-Piercing demon king were completely different from those of a Golden Core great demon.
Even in the mortal world, it was said that wealth never survived three generations; among the demon race, where the strong devoured the weak, that rule was applied to its extreme.
Any clan that endured had, at its source, a demon king who could live ten thousand years; lineages without a demon king had mostly been wiped out. And the stronger the bloodline of a great demon, the stronger its source. Reasoning along those lines...
"This Source Tracing is promising," Yaoguang said. "Capture one descendant of a demon sovereign, and I can trace the bloodline back to the sovereign's location and kill it. The divine race seems to work the same way. Nearly every being among them has a patron god; the divine kings, divine emperors, and divine sovereigns they worship are, without question, the source of their souls. So, if I find any divine general, I can drag out the divine king, emperor, or sovereign behind him. This will make finding my prey much easier."
The ability was an unexpected windfall, no question. Still, now that he had this ability, starting from the Yin Lunar Sect no longer made the most sense; hunting demon sovereigns and divine sovereigns clearly played to its strengths.
Nonetheless, the Yin Lunar Sect has to be cowed first. I destroyed two of their Void-Shattering and five of their Void-Refining cultivators, and they've sat silent all this time. It gives me the feeling they're planning something. Yaoguang thought for a moment, coming to a decision.
First, he would carry out a round of assassinations in the Yin Lunar Sect's territory, striking until the sect retracted all its claws; then he would head to the Deep-Blue Sea to cut down some of the demon race, building the prestige that would prepare him to take stewardship of the Penglai Immortal Sect.
And of course, if war between the Light Divine Race and the Heavenly Dao Sect erupted, the battlefield beyond would take priority.
With that, he set to digesting the wealth of experience the Daemon Hunter branch had granted. The knowledge acquired from it did not directly increase his strength, but it deepened his understanding of the myriad races of the universe: the divine race, the demon race, the artifact spirit race, the star race, the machine race, the insect race, the dream race, the void race, the parasite race, and more.
The vast cosmos was inhabited by strange species beyond counting, each wielding powers scarcely believable.
Studying closely, he saw that human cultivators strengthened themselves not merely against the universe's hostile environments but also against the threats posed by those endlessly varied races, just as mortals had evolved step by step, mastered technology, and overpowered every beast to rule their planet.
Human cultivators were the same. Through cultivation, they formed Golden Cores, entered the Void-Piercing Realm, became Dao Lords, glimpsed the universe's final mysteries, and stood at last upon its summit, until no alien race could pose a mortal threat to them again.
After a month spent absorbing the Daemon Hunter branch's trove of information on the divine, fiend, and demon races, Yaoguang felt surer of the road ahead.
"Have Wu Changfeng come see me." He gave the instruction to Tang Fenghua waiting outside, then added, "And call Qi Sha and Perfected Lord Li as well."
"Yes," Tang Fenghua acknowledged and saw to it promptly.
Before long, Wu Changfeng, Qi Sha, and Li Hanqiu arrived one after another at the Hundred-Refinement Peak.
"Deputy Sect Master." The three offered fist-and-palm salutes.
Yaoguang nodded to Qi Sha and Li Hanqiu, then turned to Wu Changfeng. "How is the Sky Net system?"
"After years of steady investment, we can now guarantee detection of any Void-Refining fiendish cultivator who sets foot in the southern domain," Wu Changfeng said at once.
"Void-Refining..." Yaoguang nodded. "That's passable, for now."
He glanced at Qi Sha and Li Hanqiu. "The Yin Lunar Sect's two Void-Shattering and five Void-Refining cultivators slipped into our Southern Capital and nearly wrought ruin. We have to return the courtesy; our southern domain owes them retribution in full measure, enough to teach them the price of invading us. So after a year or two of preparation, I intend to make a trip into the Yin Lunar Sect's territory and execute a few of their Void-Shattering fiendish cultivators, to display the might of our southern domain."
At those words, all three men stiffened.
"Deputy Sect Master... Isn't that too dangerous?" Wu Changfeng couldn't hold back. "The Yin Lunar Sect is no weakling. Even having lost two Void-Shattering cultivators, they still have at least a handful more. If you go in alone and their fiendish cultivators corner you..."
"It doesn't matter. Fiendish cultivators are adept at saving their lives and poor at taking them. There isn't a single Yin Lunar Sect cultivator on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings. This trip carries no danger for me." Yaoguang looked around at them. "The operation is going ahead. But to keep the Yin Lunar Sect from throwing everything at the southern domain while I'm away, I need you fully prepared. The moment they attempt to take revenge, detect it and deal with them at once!"
He added, "If necessary, request aid from Supreme Elders Zhen Xuanyuan and Chi Yun. After our last 'friendly' exchange at the sect, I trust they won't turn a blind eye to a call from the southern domain, and they certainly won't dare come up with any more excuses like a broken teleportation array."
Wu Changfeng and Qi Sha thought the plan risky, but could only accept it. Li Hanqiu, as ever, executed Yaoguang's every order without doubting them. He knew Yaoguang would have his reasons; their part was simply to follow instructions and defend the Southern Capital and the southern domain.
"I'll keep the Southern Capital stable. Nothing will be allowed to go wrong while you're away," Li Hanqiu said gravely.
Yaoguang nodded with a smile. He was about to say something more when he felt something. "Someone's coming."
The next moment, his figure flickered, and he appeared fifteen thousand kilometers away.