The Sovereign's Ascension

Lin Yun left the valley with Bai Qiushui and Gao Yu after leaving the Dragon Blooded Horse behind to watch over Xiao Ran and Bu Chen. After all, Lin Yun had to keep his word and let those two kneel for three days.

Naturally, the Dragon Blooded Horse was more than happy to uphold this punishment and let them know the consequence for being dishonest.

The sky gradually turned dark. Under Lin Yun and Gao Yu’s protection, Bai Qiushui and the herb servants swiftly left the Bloodbone Forest. Lin Yun dealt with all the troubles that they encountered, allowing them to leave the forest safely. The journey was smooth and peaceful aside from some demonic beasts that didn’t have the sight to avoid them.

When the first glimmer of dawn peeked through the clouds, Bai Qiushui shooed everyone to talk with Lin Yun privately. “I have to thank you greatly for your help this time,” she said.

Bai Qiushui was filled with gratitude. After all, this journey was dangerous and they even encountered the Bloodbone Wandering Cultivators. Who knew what would have happened if Lin Yun hadn’t rushed back. She had heard stories of how women were tortured to death when they fell in the Bloodbone Wandering Cultivators’ hands.

“I was just doing my part. Ensuring your safety is naturally my responsibility since I accepted the mission.” Lin Yun paused briefly before he continued, “Furthermore, I even got three interspatial pouches, which can be considered a sizable harvest, not to mention that I also had a chance encounter deep in the valley. So, I should be the one thanking Lady Bai for bringing me here.”

After all, he wouldn’t be able to find the valley if it wasn’t for Bai Qiushui. His words made Bai Qiushui curious, so she asked, “Did you have a rich harvest deep in the valley?”

“That’s right. Lady Bai, you’ve done research on herbs, but do you know about flowers?”

“I know a thing or two about them. You can describe it and I’ll see if I know it,” replied Bai Qiushui humbly.

Lin Yun then described the blood rose without any hesitation. Of course, he skipped certain details such as the golden tiger and the transcript.

“Dream Soul!” Bai Qiushui’s face changed when she heard Lin Yun’s story. She immediately asked, “Where is that flower right now?”

“It fused with my sword.” Lin Yun took out the Flower Burial Sword and showed it to Bai Qiushui.

Lin Yun’s straightforwardness embarrassed Bai Qiushui, causing her to smile and say, “Young Master Lin, you’re rather straightforward.”

Bai Qiushui took the Flower Burial Sword, but her hands dropped when she received it.

“Forget it. I’d rather not take a look at it,” smiled Bai Qiushui bitterly as she handed the sword back. “Roses are also called Pale Remnant Flowers and there are many types of them out there. But there’s only one that can be called the Dream Soul. It’s one of the ten kings on the flower ranking. I’m not surprised anymore that you were able to cut through Xue Feng’s quasi-cosmic artifact.”

“Dream Soul?” asked Lin Yun.

“That’s right. It’s one of the ten kings. The blood rose that you obtained is known as the king of Dream Souls because it looks dreamy when it blossoms. It’s also known as an infatuated flower. So your sword must be special for the Dream Soul to fall in love with it,” sighed Bai Qiushui.

“Thank you for your answers.” Lin Yun now knew why the Flower Burial Sword could transcend profound artifacts. So it turns out that the blood rose was one of the ten kings among flowers.

“We’re out of the Bloodbone Forest. You guys shouldn’t encounter any danger from now on, so let’s bid farewell here.” Since Lin Yun had finally finished his mission, then he wouldn’t have to return to the Inkcloud City with Bai Qiushui. After all, traveling back and forth was time-consuming.

“It’s best if you refrain from coming to such a dangerous place in the future. Honestly speaking, there’s no need for you to undergo so much trouble with your status…” Lin Yun gave a friendly reminder before leaving.

He was lucky to kill Xue Feng. After all, he was unsure if he could win if he hadn’t refined the three lord-rank beast cores in the valley.

“Young Master Lin, you’re leaving already? Aren’t you curious about my identity?” Bai Qiushui asked Lin Yun while looking at his silhouette.

“I’ll naturally find it out about it if we’re fated to meet again. But what’s the point of finding out your identity if we’re not fated to meet again?” Lin Yun slowly walked away, gradually disappearing from Bai Qiushui’s view.

Looking at Lin Yun’s disappearing figure, Bai Qiushui sighed inwardly and looked rather disappointed. She never imagined that the youth she had given up on would appear before her again one year later. She recalled how he rescued the Azure Sky Sect with his sword and left Bai Qiushui with deep emotions. She had a feeling that this youth’s name would one day resound in the Great Qin Empire.

Lin Yun found a remote valley after separating from Bai Qiushui and started to sort through the interspatial pouches left behind by the wandering cultivators. He first poured out the items from the skinny wandering cultivator and the one-eyed wandering cultivator. Their interspatial pouches had lots of things such as pellets, spiritual jades, artifacts, rations, clothes, and other random stuff.

Everything was disorganized because the goods were obtained from various robberies. It was simply impossible for Lin Yun to sort them all out. Lin Yun only focused on picking out the spiritual jades, pellets, and martial techniques while ignoring everything else.

“They’re pretty rich to have nearly 30,000 spiritual jades. It’s impossible to find this much on Sword Firmament Pavilion disciples.” Lin Yun smacked his lips. It was an astronomical sum of spiritual jades. In the past, in order to obtain this much, he would have to spend half a month without any rest.

But he had gotten this much so easily by killing the two wandering cultivators. Lin Yun was glad to see the spiritual jades since he was currently broke. After storing the spiritual jades, he began looking through the martial techniques. In addition to the Demonic Fiendclaw and Flameiron Fist that the two had used, there were some martial techniques from random sects lying around.

Although there were many, none caught Lin Yun’s attention.

“I shouldn’t complain. How can I be unhappy with getting 30,000 spiritual jades from two small fries.” Lin Yun didn’t need the pellets, so he planned to give them to the Dragon Blooded Horse. After all, the Dragon Blooded Horse ate everything, including poison. 

But the highlight was still Xue Feng’s interspatial pouch. Everyone on the Great Thief Ranking was wanted by the Great Qin Empire because every single one of them had committed grave crimes. Their heads alone would be worth 50,000 spiritual jades.

Xue Feng might be ranked towards the bottom, but he was still someone on the ranking. When Lin Yun took out Xue Feng’s interspatial pouch, the spiritual jades in it piled before him. In just a brief moment, the pile grew to a size that was two times taller than Lin Yun.

Just how many people did this fellow kill? There should be at least a hundred thousand spiritual jades here… Lin Yun took a deep breath as his heart throbbed. He needed a large amount of origin energy for the Iris Sword Sutra and Age Sutra. These spiritual jades could resolve his urgent need for them.

Aside from the spiritual jades, there were also many other martial techniques, which provided Lin Yun with a pleasant surprise. “T-these are from the four sects?!”

“Bloodfiend Slash.” This should be the martial technique that Xue Feng used. It was an evil martial technique that could perfectly fuse the ominous aura and saber intent together. Lin Yun wasn’t confident that he could win against Xue Feng if it wasn’t for the three lord-rank beast cores. Especially since there was no way he could resist Xue Feng’s ominous aura with his sword intent.

The reason why Bu Chen and Xiao Ran were so easily suppressed was because they were completely oppressed by the Bloodfiend Slash. It prevented them from bringing out more than half of their strength. It was a powerful martial technique, meaning that Lin Yun wouldn’t be able to kill Xue Feng if the latter had reached greater mastery with it.

Lin Yun applied pressure in his grip and crushed the plaque. It was best to destroy such an evil martial technique.

“The Dracophant Battle Physique!” Lin Yun’s eyes suddenly lit up when he saw a jade plaque. It was the Primal Origin Sect’s body-refining martial technique and it was on a higher level than his Thunderblitz Battle Physique.

Lin Yun was already jealous of it when he saw Zuo Yun executing it, so his gaze began to change. Unlike the incomplete Dragon-Tiger Fist that was lying around, the Dracophant Battle Physique was something that only Primal Origin Sect disciples could practice. Anyone who wasn’t a disciple of their sect would get into trouble for practicing it. On the other hand, he didn’t have such concern with the Dragon-Tiger Fist since it was gifted to him by Drifting Goblet.

“I’ll keep it for now and decide what to do with it later.” Lin Yun gave up thinking about it for the time being and stored the Dracophant Battle Physique. Although he was envious of this technique, there were some taboos that he had to keep in mind.

Xue Feng’s interspatial pouch contained ten-odd martial techniques that belonged to the four great sects. But aside from the Dracophant Battle Physique, the techniques were only profound martial techniques. Lin Yun was somewhat disappointed when he searched thoroughly and saw that there weren’t any spiritual martial techniques.

“This saber is not bad. It’s a transcendent-grade profound artifact, so it should be pretty popular. This is a Firecloud Pellet, this is the Violetcloud Armor forged by the imperial clan… T-this is a blood crystal? Holy shit, he even has over a hundred second-grade spiritual jades!” Lin Yun's eyes bulged out when he saw the items in the interspatial pouch.

The things in Xue Feng’s interspatial pouch were on a whole new level compared to the other two wandering cultivators. After all, Xue Feng wouldn’t keep any trash in his interspatial pouch. Anything that could be placed in Xue Feng’s interspatial pouch was a treasure.

Lin Yun transferred all the treasures into his interspatial pouch. He had instantly obtained 130,000 spiritual jades, all sorts of blood crystals, artifacts, and pellets. His wealth rocketed from being broke to rich. He had to be frugal with his resources before, but he no longer had to do that.

“No wonder Bu Chen and Xiao Ran would fall out with me. So it turns out that Xue Feng’s interspatial pouch contained so many treasures.” Lin Yun’s gaze finally fell onto the devil mask. The devil mask was engraved with strange spiritual runes and was forged with a material unknown to Lin Yun.