Chapter 442: Protector
"Top ten among the Void-Shattering Realm..." Yaoguang smiled and didn't argue the point with Li Hanqiu.
The gaps between the Void-Piercing, Void-Refining, and Void-Shattering Realms might not be impassable chasms, but the distance between an ordinary Void-Piercing cultivator and himself was probably no smaller than the one between a Void-Shattering cultivator and a Dao Lord.
The warship tore onward, and the Penglai Immortal Sect drew near.
Yaoguang had visited the Penglai Immortal Sect's territory more than once or twice, but it had always been its outskirts, places like the Biyou Immortal Market.
This was his first time actually arriving at the Penglai Immortal Sect's headquarters, an expanse of 108 islands that made Yaoguang sigh in appreciation as soon as it entered his perception.
"The Penglai Immortal Sect... It really is enormous."
The headquarters' grounds stretched over 150,000 kilometers from end to end. Some of the sect's lower-ranked, less gifted disciples would probably never leave the headquarters in their entire lives. It was truly enormous.
But beyond its size, the Penglai Immortal Sect didn't seem to have much worth praising. No arrays to speak of, no resources, no treasured grounds.
Not none at all, of course; it was just that, when compared to the Heavenly Dao Sect, the Penglai headquarters fell short across the board. It was roughly comparable to the southern domain's old state, before Yaoguang's arrival, and it was hard to imagine it as the home base of a top-tier great sect.
As the warship arrived above the Penglai Immortal Sect, streams of light shot skyward, and a rainbow bridge of shifting colors extended out from within the sect.
Then, led personally by acting sect master Shi Lin, a line of Void-Refining palace masters assembled at the air dock, waiting for the warship to dock.
When a Void-Shattering cultivator entered another top power's territory, it was customary to give advance notice to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings. Yaoguang had naturally informed the Penglai Immortal Sect beforehand that he intended to call on the Penglai Dao Lord.
And with the arrival of a personage like him, who was recognized to be more influential than the Heavenly Dao Sect's sect master despite not holding that title, no one in the Penglai Immortal Sect dared to show the slightest negligence.
Especially since the latest update of the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings had placed him in the top ten, forcing everyone to recognize his strength.
That was exactly why Shi Lin, the acting sect master, had come to the air dock in person: to show how much weight the Penglai Immortal Sect gave his visit.
The two sides exchanged greetings, and Shi Lin introduced the palace masters one by one. Yaoguang smiled and nodded to each in turn.
The palace masters, for their part, were delighted and energized by his arrival. Word had long circulated outside that Yaoguang and the Penglai Immortal Sect were close, but Yaoguang had never confirmed it, and the Heavenly Dao Sect later claimed it was a rumor spread by schemers, precisely to keep the Penglai Immortal Sect from attaching itself to him.
Yet here was Yaoguang, visiting the Penglai Immortal Sect the moment he entered the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings. The speculation had, to some degree, just been confirmed.
At the thought that their own sect enjoyed the friendship of such a top-tier Void-Shattering cultivator, the Void-Refining palace masters stood taller, glowing with pride.
After a round of warm pleasantries, Shi Lin said with a smile, "My master already knows of your arrival, Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang. I'll take you to her place of cultivation now."
"Much obliged." Yaoguang nodded slightly.
He left Li Hanqiu and the others behind and followed Shi Lin into the sect's interior.
Just before they passed into the array delimiting the innermost core of the Penglai Immortal Sect, Yaoguang seemed to sense something and glanced in a particular direction.
There stood Deputy Sect Master Leng Qingqiu, supposedly one of the receiving party's members; a jealous expression briefly crossed her face as she realized Yaoguang had the standing to meet the Penglai Dao Lord directly.
But the moment Yaoguang's gaze found her, the Void-Refining deputy sect master turned her head away, not daring to meet his eyes.
The story of Yaoguang single-handedly overwhelming the Yin Lunar Sect and forcing them to retreat behind their gates was now common knowledge. With such a fearsome reputation, who would dare disrespect him?
Even Leng Qingqiu, despite her status as a Dao Lord's direct disciple and deputy sect master of the Penglai Immortal Sect, lacked the courage to show displeasure to his face. At most, she might curse him behind his back. She was nothing more than a clown.
Yaoguang gave a faint laugh, withdrew his gaze, and stepped with Shi Lin into the level 14 array, the kind of array that had been set up through sheer brute force.
Inside the array, the first thing to meet the eye was a lotus pond stretching almost farther than sight could reach.
Countless flourishing lotuses filled Yaoguang's view. At a glance, they seemed to spread for several kilometers around him. Wooden walkways threaded through the pond, and anyone strolling them would feel as if they were moving through a veritable sea of lotus blossoms.
Shi Lin led Yaoguang to a small wooden house on an islet in the pond, where a woman with long flowing hair reclined against a pavilion chair, admiring the endless lotuses.
The house was modest, under a hundred square meters, and entirely open. A cool breeze passed through it, making the many silk screens inside sway, and the effect was strangely beautiful.
"Master..." Shi Lin greeted her respectfully.
"So you've come." The Penglai Dao Lord glanced at the two of them and beckoned, gesturing at the wooden... tatami beside her. "Sit."[1]
Yaoguang stepped forward, glanced once at the barefoot Penglai Dao Lord by the window, then at the spotless tatami, and finally took off his shoes before sitting.
The Penglai Dao Lord watched him with a look that was almost a smile, then said, "This is my memory of home from when I was small. What I remember most is this lotus pond... Every summer, my mother would bring my younger sisters and me here to escape the heat and play..."
Yaoguang was a little surprised to hear it. The Penglai Dao Lord had only risen to fame after entering the Heavenly Sea Sword Pavilion; before that, she had been utterly unknown.
There was a story outside, though, that she wasn't native to the North Sea Star at all, but came from an ordinary planet under the Heavenly Sea Sword Pavilion's administration, and that after cultivating to a certain point there, she had followed one of the Pavilion's warships to the North Sea Star. Afterward, the demon race apparently destroyed that planet...
Well, that wasn't the point. The point was that her family had owned a lotus pond several kilometers across! Exactly how rich did a household have to be for that?! Absurdly rich.
Beside them, Shi Lin poured tea and water for Yaoguang and the Penglai Dao Lord like a serving maid.
"If you needed something, you could simply have sent me a message. Arriving with this much ceremony, are you planning something big? Something that might draw the attention of Dao Lords?" the Penglai Dao Lord asked curiously.
"Yes." Yaoguang considered for a moment, and judging that Shi Lin held a different place in the Penglai Dao Lord's heart than her other disciples, he answered honestly. "In the coming period, I'll be buying up refinement materials in bulk..."
He paused. "Materials for forging top-tier Dao Artifacts, and even immortal artifacts."
"Top-tier Dao Artifacts? Immortal artifacts?!" The Penglai Dao Lord froze. "You can forge immortal artifacts now?"
She looked him over again. "You haven't even achieved Dao Integration."
"Only to forge certain top-tier Dao Artifacts capable of being advanced into immortal artifacts later. Besides, the higher the quality of the materials that go in, the easier a top-tier Dao Artifact is to complete," Yaoguang said.
"It's rather a waste of heaven's treasures," the Penglai Dao Lord shot back at once.
"But I'm confident that one day I can upgrade these top-tier Dao Artifacts, built with immortal artifact materials, into true immortal artifacts," Yaoguang said.
With his Refiner branch raised to level 16, he had the confidence to say it. In truth, if not for the limits of his cultivation realm, he could already have attempted forging an immortal artifact.
Though having only just reached level 16, the odds of failure would be enormous; at best, he could pile on immortal artifact materials and produce a semi-immortal artifact.
"Fine. But never mind immortal artifact materials... Even the materials for top-tier Dao Artifacts are brutally expensive, and it all counts as strategic goods. Almost no one puts such things up for sale!"
"If no one puts them up for sale, the offered price simply isn't high enough," Yaoguang said. "Auxiliary materials for a top-tier Dao Artifact start above a hundred million; main materials start at a billion, the price of a whole Dao Artifact. And immortal artifact materials run a hundred times the price of top-tier Dao Artifact materials... But what if I doubled that price? Tripled it? What if I paid twenty, even thirty billion for a single auxiliary immortal artifact material?"
"Then you'd become a fattened sheep in the eyes of the Dao Lords," the Penglai Dao Lord said, laughing. "The void Dao Lords especially. They'd hardly mind strangling a future Dao Lord as promising as you in the cradle as it is, and if you flaunt your wealth like that, forget the void Dao Lords, even I'd be a little tempted."
She looked at Yaoguang. "After all, however consummate your refinement skill, one immortal artifact takes at minimum three portions of material, one main and two auxiliary, and sometimes four or five auxiliary portions. Even figuring only a doubled price, your cost to forge one top-tier Dao Artifact from immortal artifact materials would top 250,000,000,000. Plenty of Dao Lords aren't worth that much in total."
Yaoguang knew the Penglai Dao Lord was telling the truth. It was easy to see candidates on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings carrying one or two high-grade Dao Artifacts and assume Dao Lords treated such artifacts as nothing.
In reality, everyone on the rankings was being groomed as a future Dao Lord. Most had the backing of a sitting Dao Lord, who had likely invested heavily in them; and since high-grade Dao Artifacts were of little use to Dao Lords themselves, they bestowed them on their Void-Shattering juniors.
For many newly advanced Dao Lords, their entire fortune came to no more than one or two hundred billion. Trillion-holders were the elite among Dao Lords.
The fact that the Penglai Dao Lord, herself newly advanced, could casually hand Yaoguang over a hundred billion in goods came down to two things. First, Yaoguang forged top-tier Dao Artifacts for her, and a top-tier Dao Artifact was worth the price.
Second, most of the materials she supplied came from the Heavenly Sea Sword Pavilion and the Jade Scale Demon Paragon. Having plundered two top powers, she was naturally wealthier than an ordinary Dao Lord.
Whereas if he revealed a fortune on the hundred-billion scale, becoming a fattened sheep for Dao Lords to plunder was no idle phrase.
"Which is why I've come to you for help, Dao Lord," Yaoguang said with a smile. "I can't guard a hundred-billion fortune. But a Dao Lord's fearsome name is more than enough to scare off every petty schemer."
"Oh? So you mean to..."
"The world already knows our southern domain has an artifact paragon. So this artifact paragon, commissioned by the Penglai Dao Lord, intends to forge a top-tier Dao Artifact and is now buying large quantities of top-grade Dao Artifact materials, even immortal artifact materials. Perfectly reasonable, no?"
1. TL note: Author is probably trying to imply that the material was wood but also looked like tatami. ☜