Chapter 45: Xuangu Mountain (Please keep reading, please vote)

As expected, it was Gu Zhengshun's call. The man seemed impatient to bind him to the chariot; considering their prior agreement, there was no need to fall out just yet.

Wang Yu smiled and said, "Senior Brother Gu, it has been many days, yet your elegance remains unchanged."

"Not at all, not at all. Just look at these people, and Junior Brother Wang will know why I am so obsessed with Black Bone Mountain."

Wang Yu nodded in agreement, appearing to everyone as a picture of brotherly affection and respect.

The crowded plaza at this moment was the front plaza of the [Palace Halls Market]. Since the Black Bone Mountain mission was a sect-level official matter, the handover between the two groups had to be handled by the Mission Hall.

Consequently, many people were standing about.

Gu Zhengshun secretly pointed out two people who were being treated like stars in the sky and introduced them in a low voice

"Junior Brother Wang, look at that woman in black with green hair. She is an inner disciple of the sect's third peak, [Gu Poison Peak]. Her name is Liu Jinxian, and she is at the eighth level of Qi Refinement. Her father is the Core Formation Elder 'True Person Green Snake.' Since the Black Bone Mountain Lord's Command includes her share, those surrounding her are all subordinates of Gu Poison Peak—there are over two hundred of them. It is the largest faction among the three Black Bone Mountain Lords."

Wang Yu raised an eyebrow... Liu Jinxian, quite a grand name: "And the other one?"

"Situ Hong. He is an inner disciple of the seventh peak, [Five Yin Peak]. He has an adoptive mother who is also a Core Formation cultivator, known as the 'Peach Blossom Ghost Mother,' whose strength is much greater than that of True Person Green Snake. He himself is only at the seventh level of Qi Refinement, having only recently entered the late stage of Qi Refinement. There are a total of one hundred and twenty-nine disciples from Five Yin Peak surrounding him."

Good heavens, the two sides combined made exactly four hundred people. If he had come to the appointment without knowing anything, the three Mountain Lords would have treated him like a lone wolf; he likely would have been taken out on the road.

That dog Zhao Shang deserved to be eaten alive!

However, then again, although Gu Zhengshun had a Core Formation grandmaster, his connections certainly wouldn't be as close as his master's. In the Demonic Path, master-disciple relationships weren't as vital as one might imagine.

Compared to Liu and Situ, Gu Zhengshun's status was much lower.

Thus, when Wang Yu looked behind him, there were only about twenty people with varying levels of cultivation. The weakest were only at the third level of Qi Refinement, and they were carrying wooden coffins, looking quite shabby.

With this meager foundation... he intended to compete with those two?

Wang Yu gave Gu Zhengshun a look of confusion and walked away silently.

"Ahem—

"Junior Brother Wang, don't be in such a hurry. The sect has released over five hundred Black Bone Commands in total, and there are about eighty ordinary disciples left. They can recruit some more. You did agree to 'ride through wind and rain together'~"

Wang Yu paused his steps. He did not leave, but instead blended into the crowd of Heavenly Corpse Peak disciples, found someone with a usable coffin, and slung it over his back to look the part.

From today on, he was a disciple of Heavenly Corpse Peak~

To blend in with the world.

Seeing this, Gu Zhengshun did not stop him; in fact, he was pleased. Wang Yu was one of his trump cards, so he naturally had to keep him hidden for now.

Gu Zhengshun, meanwhile, went toward the group of ordinary disciples to use his eloquence to recruit manpower, while also using the opportunity to gather intelligence from the veteran disciples who were rotating back.

Five years was not a short time for a Qi Refinement cultivator.

There might be discrepancies with the intelligence he currently held, so it was necessary to clarify things; there was no harm in asking more.

The area of a single province was vast. Xueyuan Province covered approximately twenty million square kilometers. The Counter-Spirit Blood Sect was located in the center of this province, and only a few hundred miles away lay the holy land for practicing blood-path cultivation—the [Blood Abyss]!

This journey required traveling north out of the sect, crossing [Qiongye Province] to reach [Feng Province], which was the northernmost part of the Crimson Kite Demonic Territory, located in a remote area to the left.

Further north lay the [Endless Ice Plains], which were not only vast and uninhabited but also home to a natural disaster known as the Extreme Ice Storm, which even Nascent Soul monsters found difficult to cross.

The straight-line distance of this trip exceeded fifty thousand kilometers, longer than the equator of his previous life; it could be considered a long-distance expedition.

At the speed of a Qi Refinement cultivator, even if they used flying magic tools the entire way, it would take at least twenty-six days, averaging eighty kilometers per hour.

But that was the straight-line distance. To bypass various dangerous lands and stop to recover mana and rest daily, it was normal for the travel time to multiply several times. It would take at least nearly three months to arrive at Black Bone Mountain.

The timing would coincide with the start of the new year, and the period of stationing would begin upon arrival.

Fortunately, they were traveling through the territory of the Counter-Spirit Blood Sect; otherwise, forget arriving—not dying halfway would be a stroke of divine luck.

Maps of the Crimson Kite Demonic Territory were difficult for someone like Wang Yu to obtain. Maps were rare resources that every sect valued highly. Ordinary maps were useless; they had to mark spirit veins, factions, dangerous lands, and so on... the risk of drawing them was extremely high.

Therefore, the lower a cultivator's level, the more "blind" they were. He knew how to get to certain places, but he only knew one or two of the dangers they might encounter, making it difficult to see the full picture.

For cultivators, long-distance travel was a difficult undertaking.

The waiting time was always long.

By the time Gu Zhengshun returned to the group, he hadn't recruited a single person, but instead held a scroll in his hand. He said

"Junior Brother Wang, the handover at the Mission Hall is complete. The compensation for five years is five hundred contribution points and five hundred spirit stones. You just need to leave your imprint using your disciple token."

This amount of money was very little. Compared to the missions taken from the Ice Snow Pavilion, it was quite meager. No wonder those people preferred to be exploited by sixty percent just to take missions within the Pavilion.

"Fine."

The gains from Black Bone Mountain lay not in the mission itself, but in the opportunities found in that place; thus, having a little more or less made no difference.

After completing the imprint, Gu Zhengshun handed them out to the others one by one, then turned back to hand in the mission scroll before saying

"Alright, everything is settled. Let's go."

Wang Yu's expression changed as he pointed at the groups led by Liu and Situ.

"Not going together?"

"They look down on us. Let's go."

"Alright..."

Just as he was about to take out the Black Silk—the flying magic tool he hadn't used since obtaining it—Gu Zhengshun pulled out a bone ship and embedded dozens of mid-grade spirit stones into it. The bone ship instantly expanded, large enough to carry their twenty-two people.

He had lacked experience.

As soon as they departed, Liu Jinxian and Situ Hong immediately displayed their own methods: one was a pavilion shrouded in poisonous smoke containing an internal world, and the other was a skull that let out wails of yin souls, which rapidly expanded after spirit stones were embedded.

To Wang Yu's surprise, there were no Foundation Establishment cultivators accompanying them; instead, the disciples who had obtained the "Mountain Lord Command" were free to travel on their own.

On the bone ship, Gu Zhengshun, who was flying toward the outskirts of the sect, seemed to read Wang Yu's thoughts and joked

"Feng Province is remote, and our Black Bone Mountain is near the Endless Ice Plains. Not many Foundation Establishment cultivators go to this area, and once they settle in, it's hard for them to move for forty or fifty years."

"So that's how it is—"

Two words could summarize it: [Exile]!

After leaving the sect, Gu Zhengshun handed the task of maneuvering the bone ship to his subordinates and sat on the top-level platform to drink with Wang Yu, while also sharing intelligence about Black Bone Mountain and what they would be doing next.