Chapter 489: Great Changes (1/2)

[V6C19 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]

Moments later, Qianye and Song Zining sat down in the study. Too many things had happened lately, be it in the Iron Curtain, the empire, or Blackflow City. The two had experienced a fair share of things and would likely require over an hour to catch up .

Song Zining’s situation was pretty good. He had even gotten in touch with the werewolves Qianye had subdued on his western expedition. The Sharp Fang Tribe was affected by the bloody battle, and only a third of its former population remained. In the end, they had no choice but to leave their ancestral land, Green Peak Mountain.

The werewolf viscount Brudo became much more vigilant after his setback with Qianye last time. He had kept his forces concentrated within his core territory and didn’t quite get swept into the bloody battle. This left him with a fair bit of military strength. They also took in the remnants of the Sharp Fang Tribe.

Qianye remembered William after hearing this news and couldn’t help but sigh inside his heart. Although Song Zining was back in Blackflow City at the moment, he had set up numerous defensive positions in all of the regions he had swept through. After the bloody battle had ended and the dark races from the upper continents had left, those places would be incorporated into the Blackflow war zone sooner or later.

At the same time, the humans would eventually start to flock over—people like those merchants on the streets, adventurers, and all kinds of people seeking survival. Perhaps one or several new cities would pop up over the next few years. However, this meant that the living space for the dark races would contract. The general situation would change very little even if Qianye tacitly allowed them to stay in his territory.

This was the essence of the war between daybreak and evernight. Land resources were a deciding factor in the survival and development of a race.

But what Song Zining was more interested in was the profits brought about by the war. According to him, resources and people signified more trade opportunities which would only multiply as the population grew. As such, a neutral region would be a fairly good development strategy.

Qianye felt dazzled as Song Zining blurted out a string of numbers. According to him, the income from the imperial rewards and those offered by the aristocratic families were just about equal to the Ningyuan Group’s profits, the recent transactions they had grasped the opportunity to engage in.

Qianye laughed as he recalled the Song clan. He also came to understand why that enormous family would slowly reach its current state. The profits from trade were simply too vast—so vast that people started to forget what the cornerstone of business was. They forgot that goods came from resources, that justice was born of strength, and furthermore, that the opposite might not hold true.

Comparatively, Qianye’s gains from the bloody battle were simple. They were all rare materials he had obtained from the Zhao clan, with no shortage of rare medicines required for a champion’s cultivation. But unexpectedly, Song Zining told him that he had no use for them because he had never used supplementary medicines to advance in rank.

Qianye was quite surprised. There was no such thing as cultivation medicines when the humans awoke origin power thousands of years ago. However, throughout the long passage of time, medicines and machines used to bolster one’s combat strength had almost become second nature.

At this point, Song Zining asked, “Did you find any other cultivation arts in the Song Clan Ancient Scroll apart from the Mystery and Glory Chapters?”

Qianye replied, “There are four or five more chapters, but I simply can’t find the origin power routes and nodes mentioned in there.”

“Oh? How come?”

Qianye recalled the origin power circulation and control methods he had seen in the Song Clan Ancient Scroll. Later on, he simply produced the jade booklet and activated them one by one for Song Zining to see.

Qianye suddenly discovered that the activated secrets within the scroll had increased. He stared puzzled at the jade leaflet for a while before looking up at Song Zining. “I remember you telling me that only those who have awakened Venus Dawn can cultivate the Song Clan Ancient Scroll.”

Song Zining flipped through the words on the jade leaflet in great detail, then said without looking up, “Isn’t that exactly what your talent is?”

Qianye was stunned. He opened his mouth a bit but actually had no idea how to respond.

The initial Venus Dawn was an imitation arising from the golden blood energy, but the latter had been refined by the Song Clan Ancient Scroll. Although he didn’t see his own visual phenomena back at the Zhao clan’s Marrow Cleansing Pond, the talent inspection array and the Zhao clan’s divine champion experts all concluded that it was Venus Dawn. Were they all mistaken? Even he himself wasn’t too sure at this point.

“But back then, you said that you had a master calculate…”

Song Zining broke into a laugh and pointed at himself with great satisfaction. “Isn’t yours truly worthy of being called a master?!”

“You mean, you…” Qianye was completely dumbfounded.

It was already past midnight when Qianye and Song Zining left the study.

Song Zining didn’t rest immediately upon returning to his room. He leaned on the bed for a good while, seemingly deep in thought, as he tossed a jade tablet up and down in his hand. The tablet’s color was rather dim and looked ordinary on the surface. But on careful observation, one would find that its splendor was contracted within and that it was no ordinary item. Surprisingly it was made of the same material as the Song Clan Ancient Scroll.

The jade tablet was tossed up once again, and this time, it flew so high that it was almost touching the ceiling. It began disintegrating on its way back down and shattered into motes of lustrous brilliance, which then vanished into Song Zining’s palm.

The room was immersed in the colors of the night and devoid of any light source. However, a certain radiance flickered several times during this split second.

The light specks in Song Zining’s palm had more or less disappeared, but what remained of them were still reflected upon his handsome face and outlined his gentle silhouette.

Presently, a new origin vortex had appeared in Song Zining’s body. He was now rank-eleven.