Chapter 753: Night Before the War (1/2)
By the time Qianye arrived at the new residence, the atmosphere in the city was evidently tenser. Wounded adventurers could be found everywhere in the city. The City Guard had occupied the road hubs in full force, replacing the Law Enforcement Unit in maintaining order. After all, the latter was only good for digging up small criminals and bullying civilians. They weren’t powerful enough to handle the violent and bloodthirsty hunters and mercenaries.
The courtyard wasn’t very big and only had three rooms to it. But due to its location in the noble district, the price was still extraordinary. At the very least, the vice-guard-captain who had escorted Qianye here seemed quite envious. He was also a champion who had followed Su Dingqian for a long time, yet he had only earned a small residence on the borders of the noble district. And even that wasn’t as large as Qianye’s, and the origin array was also somewhat inferior.
As the Monroe Princess, Nighteye was entirely numb to the so-called luxury of the neutral lands. It made no difference where she lived. Zhuji happened to be in her hibernation phase in recent days. She was drowsy from dawn to dusk and would fall asleep wherever she was placed.
By the time everything had settled down and Su Dingqian’s men had been sent away, Qianye took out the Dreameater Bug and placed it in front of Nighteye.
Nighteye’s pupils lit up after catching the scent of the beetle’s aura, feeling relaxed throughout her entire body. Qianye had no more hesitation after seeing her reaction and carefully cracked the crystal apart. The smokey wisp trapped inside shot out immediately and almost seemed like it would escape. It was extremely fast, but how could it escape Qianye’s grasp? Immediately after escaping the crystal, it was engulfed by an origin power resembling the speckled glow of dawn’s light and delivered to Nighteye.
Nighteye quietly circulated the mental formula provided by Su Dingqian, and then inhaled the wisp of smoke in one go.
The Dreameater Bug existed between material and ephemeral states but mostly remained in a misty form. After inhaling the bug, Nighteye felt as though a stream of ice had entered her body, quickly transforming into countless icy specks that spread throughout her body. After the chill had receded, she felt increasingly relaxed as though a small part of the spider webs wrapped tightly around her had been peeled off—every corner of her consciousness was cheering in jubilation.
“How does it feel?” Qianye asked in concern.
“Very good, it’s useful for me. But…”
Qianye interrupted her, “As long as it’s useful! I’ll get more of it for you.”
There was no telling when he would be able to find the spirit-healing Marine Lotus. Now that Qianye had run into this Dreameater Bug, he naturally wouldn’t let go of this opportunity.
A wave of sleepiness washed over Nighteye after ingesting the Dreameater Bug. Soon, she could no longer open her eyes and fell asleep after saying she was feeling tired.
Qianye wasn’t worried, either. On the contrary, he was delighted because vampires usually underwent regeneration in their sleep. Her current state proved that the healing effects of the Dreameater Bug were even better than expected.
After placing Nighteye on the bed, Qianye left the chambers and sat down in the living room to contemplate the situation.
With such outstanding effects, the Dreameater Bug was naturally quite valuable. Su Dingqian was no saint, but a formidable character who dominated an entire region. Now that he was willing to bring out such a treasure along with the Loyalty Formula, one could easily guess how troublesome Qianye’s potential opponents were.
Caressing the now-empty lacquer box, Qianye muttered with a sigh, “Is this to deal with the Wolf King?”
Since it was Bloodyshirt who had told Su Dingqian about him, it was very likely that the two crafty men had already found out about Qianye’s identity in the neutral lands. After all, Qianye was searching for Xue Xingsan. After connecting all the dots together, they would find out that Qianye and Nighteye were actually looking for Cui Yuanhai. Consequently, the city lord would easily know that they were the ones wanted by the Wolf King as well as their accomplishments in the Black Grove. Considering this, the price Su Dingqian had paid to recruit them couldn’t be considered a loss since he had obtained the power of two people.
But how could someone like Su Dingqian be content with merely “not losing”? He was actually betting on Nighteye and Qianye having other hidden aces, as well as their future potential. One had to admit that this Su Dingqian was truly an expert in foresight.
Additionally, he was quite certain that Qianye wouldn’t go to the Wolf King’s side at the very least.
However, he probably didn’t know of Qianye and Nighteye’s identities in the empire and Evernight. If he did, the price he was willing to offer wouldn’t have stopped there.
The Loyalty Formula Su Dingqian considered as his winning chip was actually of no use to Qianye. From the Zhao clan’s accumulated knowledge and experience, Qianye knew that this so-called divine champion threshold was actually decided by two factors, one of them being the purity of one’s origin power. Different cultivation arts would produce origin power of different attributes and purity. Those lacking in purity simply couldn’t condense their power into crystal form and thus fail to become divine champions.
The other key factor was how much origin power the body could accommodate. The stronger one’s body, the more origin power it could contain and the more backlash it could tolerate from high-grade arts.