Chapter 326 – Life 77, Age 39, Martial Emperor 5

Even though Shen had been able to build his anti-Soul Lamp formation, he didn’t have much of an understanding of the principles under which it operated. So, before we could look to either expand it or reconfigure it into a grand formation, we first needed to get a better grasp of how it functioned.

After clearing away the former Emissary’s body, we cycled the original formation on and off several times to see what changes it made to the energy patterns in the natural environment.

However, after multiple attempts, neither of us was able to see anything of note. Turning on the formation didn’t appear to have any effect at all. Shen even tried jumping inside to see what would happen, but the result was the same: nothing. The formation had no effect.

Was something wrong? Was the formation broken? Was it just not able to operate under the limited Laws of my inner world?

As it turned out, the formation was working just fine.

In a fit of pique, after the formation didn’t have any effect on Shen, I decided to try it out for myself.

I walked over and sat down on it. Then, Shen activated it.

Of course, since this was all happening within my inner world, what sat down on the formation wasn’t my real body. It was my avatar—my soul avatar.

The instant the formation activated, my connection to my avatar slammed shut, my entire consciousness returned to my body, and I had a sense that my avatar had been destroyed. However, I didn’t experience the expected backlash. Why not? If part of my soul had been destroyed, I should have felt it.

I took a moment to do a quick self-assessment, but I seemed to be okay. So, I turned my attention back to my inner world and signaled Shen to deactivate the formation.

When he did, I felt an intangible piece of me return to my body.

After creating a new avatar, I stepped up beside Shen and looked at the formation.

“It works. It is definitely able to trap souls, but they have to be… free… untethered to a body.”

Shen grunted. “Alright. So, next question. Can it trap more than one?”

The answer to that was no.

I taught Shen the Soul Projection technique, and he created his own avatar. When both of us stood on the formation, only one person was sucked inside, and the person this happened to seemed to be random.

Shen stroked his chin. “I’m betting that one of these inscriptions acts as some kind of soul storage. We will probably need to duplicate that inscription for each person we want to keep captive. We will also probably have to design new connections between the capture function and the new containment functions so that it can work with multiple jail cells.”

Shen shook his head. “Unless we can get our hands on a manual that has a detailed explanation for how, exactly, these inscriptions work, I don’t see us being able to make that happen in less than a few centuries. After all, for each experiment we want to run, we’re going to have to construct a big ass formation, and that takes time.”

I sighed. If that was the case, then we would need a separate formation for each Sovereign we wanted to capture. That would make things a lot more difficult.

“Alright.” I sent a message to all of the Formation Emperors who were hiding out in my inner world. “We need to make three more formations. That’s a bit of a setback, but we can make it happen.”

---------------------------------------------------

Creating the original anti-Soul Lamp formation had taken Shen well over a century. So, crafting three more in only a few decades was a bit of a challenge.

To speed things up, I considered stealing the half-completed formation that was still lying around in Shen’s workshop, but I decided better of it. If that stone suddenly disappeared, the Sovereigns might be able to guess what we were trying to do.

This meant that we needed to create three complete Rank 7 formations entirely from scratch. Thankfully, there were several factors working in our favor.

First, while the original formation had taken Shen a long time to complete, a lot of that time was spent working out how to flatten a 4-dimensional formation into a 3-dimensional space. Since we already had a complete formation to work from, all of this work was already done for us. We just had to copy it.

Second, we had multiple Emperors to help us.

On the Nine Rivers Continent, the supply of stones that could be used for Rank 6 formations was practically nonexistent. They would almost never come up for sale, and even when they did, the stones being sold were only about the size of a fist.

Therefore, instead of carving inscriptions into pre-existing blocks, Formation Emperors were forced to use their qi to fuse powdered stone into their desired shape. This consumed an incredible amount of energy. So, when Shen was crafting his original formation, he had needed to take regular breaks to replenish his qi.

With a team of Emperors on our side, however, this became less of an issue.

One person actively worked on a formation at all times. When their qi ran out, they stepped off to the side to recover, and someone else stepped forward to take their place. Additionally, by setting up a QI Gathering Formation and burning spirit stones with the seed of the Solid Mountain Fire, I created a small area that was overflowing with earth qi. Cultivating there, our Emperors were able to replenish all their energy in the matter of a few hours.

Our third advantage was me. I had near-omnipotent control over items within my inner world.

Formation Emperor would usually have to use their will-lock to hold powdered stone in place while they used their qi to fuse it together. This rapidly burned through their mental energy, and even if they had plenty of qi, without sufficient mental energy, they wouldn’t have enough focus to continue their work.

Also, while we had several Emperors on our team, none of them were able to read Shen’s schematic. They could fuse stone powder together for us, but they didn’t actually know what shape to fuse it into.

My control over my inner world solved both of these problems. I manipulated the powder, placed it exactly where it needed to be, and held it there. All our Emperors had to do was use their qi to fuse it in place.

Of course, this wasn’t entirely free to do. Manipulating items within my inner world consumed power. Specifically, it consumed my soul power. If I wanted to deadlift a mountain several times, I would quickly run out of energy. However, since I was just moving small bits of powder around, this wasn’t an issue.

In the end, the only real challenge we faced came from the fact that I wanted to scale the formations up as much as possible. I wanted them to be able to at least cover the area of a square with sides of 50 meters.

While Shen’s original formation took over a century, our first formation only took a decade. However, when we tested it, it didn’t work. After the formation was complete, it took us another three years of tinkering to understand how to resolve certain complications that had arisen from increasing the formation’s size.

Crafting our second formation took a bit longer, a total of 11 years, but since we knew what we were doing this time, it was fully functional without the need for any additional modifications.

The third formation only took 9 years.

Altogether, we spent 33 years on this project, but it was finally complete. We were ready to face our enemies.

---------------------------------------------------

I focused on my inner world and found Su LeiYang, a young boy who was about to turn 16 years old. He was the offspring of one of the few couples that had formed within Chang’an’s limited population base. As his qi had yet to awaken, he couldn’t even be considered a true Martial Disciple yet, but he was the lynchpin in our plan to take out the Sovereigns.

I sent him a letter and gave him a few parting words. Then, I used my soul avatar to send him away since this was even more secure than using subvocalizations.

“System, teleport Su LeiYang to ShouLi.” A random thought popped into my head, and I made a quick amendment. “If ShouLi is in her bedroom or somewhere else that’s… private, place him in a safe spot right outside the room’s door.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 463,100 credits. 2,329,375,660,747 credits remaining.

While I cannot be sure exactly what happened next, the general gist is this:

LeiYang appeared next to ShouLi and handed her my letter.

Then, ShouLi visited the Blue Wind Pavilion and told WuJing when they would be dropping the restrictions that prevented Emperors from entering the territory of Mount Jiang. Since we didn’t have the guilds this time, and since Yan wouldn’t be in control of the Sovereigns’ strategy, only Mount Jiang’s formation was going to be dropped. This would help us keep things a bit more contained.

Next, a flurry of messages was sent around the Pavilion and between the Sovereigns.

Finally, an announcement was made in the Nine Rivers Sect’s Mission Hall. The sect was recruiting people to wage a war against a rebellious empire in the Wastes. There was also the mention of a substantial bounty for the capture of any member of this empire’s leadership.

Having participated in dozens of combat missions during my time in the sect, no one could possibly question my participation in such a lucrative opportunity.

A week later, on the day of the mission, I walked out the gate of Heaven City and was teleported to the base of Dragon Peak, where nearly a thousand Kings and Emperors had already gathered. As I walked to the front of the group, I felt several pairs of eyes on me, but no one tried to stop me.

At noon, a portal appeared and deposited the Sovereign of the Jiu Clan, the Master of the Nine Rivers Sect, onto a stage in front of us. He gave a few words of encouragement, slammed a fist into the air in front of him, and created a massive portal.

I immediately rushed through with my ‘comrades’ hot on my heels.

---------------------------------------------------

After arriving at the edge of the Wastes, one of the smaller groups didn’t feel the need to wait for an order to charge. As soon as they appeared, they rushed forward.

Sadly for them, the moment they entered the range of the Wastes’ formation, they were hit with a powerful repulsive force and were violently thrown backward.

Upon seeing this, no one else felt the need to tempt fate.

Less than five minutes later, the ground rumbled, signaling the lowering of the barrier.

Taking this as my cue, I ran forward and ignored my putative teammates. This left several people stunned, but when they saw that the formation didn’t repel me, they were quick to follow.

I paid little attention to these people. As long as they didn’t try to backstab me, I was content to ignore them.

Once I was under the formation’s protection and had a bit of room around me, I reached into my inner world and pulled out a Rank 6 wind horse. Jumping on its back, I proceeded to Dragon Gate City as quickly as possible.

---------------------------------------------------

When I arrived, the Dragon Gate Kingdom was already almost entirely empty. The only people who remained were the few dozen Peak Emperors who were sitting around in the throne room of the Palace of Supreme Harmony.

When they saw me, they tried to give me a bow, but I didn’t have time for pleasantries. I just reached into my storage space and pulled out Shen, the Formation Emperors we had been working with, and our four anti-Soul Lamp formations.

As soon as they appeared, I started pointing.

The Palace of Supreme Harmony sat upon a 100-meter-wide, 200-meter-long marble platform.

Knowing that the Sovereigns should appear in the throne room the moment the final ring of Dragon Gate’s formation was destroyed, I had my people bury two of our formations under the forward section of this platform. Since each of our anti-Soul Lamp formations was 50 meters across, this was enough to completely cover the area. As long as someone died in that area, their soul would be captured.

A third formation was placed under the back of the palace, and the fourth was placed at the foot of the stairs leading up to it. Since each formation could only contain a single soul, we would need to ensure that exactly one Sovereign died in each location, and these two were a bit out of the way, but I felt it should be manageable.

Importantly, while I hadn’t been able to build an anti-portal formation to protect them, with these formation blocks hidden underground, that wouldn’t be an issue. The Sovereigns couldn’t attack what they didn’t know existed.

While one group was getting all this set up, I pulled Shen down into the cavern beneath Dragon Gate.

One of the problems that we had last time was that the Sovereign of the Li Clan had tried to sneak attack TongBin. Since that had only happened after the Sovereigns were defeated, it wouldn’t be an issue this time.

However, just to be safe, I had Shen help me install the anti-portal conference room that I had gotten from Ning ZeKun into the wall of the cavern. After destroying the formation, TongBin would be able to run into the conference room and be safe from any teleporting assassins.

We didn’t stop there, though. I built a staircase out of the conference room that led directly up to the Palace of Supreme Harmony. If powerful assailants appeared, TongBin would be able to flee out the back door to where I could pull him into my inner world.

Finally, I set up a few defensive formations around the throne room and pulled everyone into my inner world.

Only three people remained in Dragon Gate. TongBin was down in the cavern. ShouLi sat on her throne. And I stood beside her.

Then, at my signal, TongBin attacked.

---------------------------------------------------

After the earthquake subsided, ShouLi and I stood motionless in the throne room.

Neither of us were cultivating. Knowing that advancing to Sovereign would erase our cultivation base, neither of us wanted to weaken ourselves before the festivities commenced.

Several long minutes ticked away with nothing happening.

Had something gone wrong? Had we miscalculated?

No, the Sovereigns had just decided to take their sweet time with things.

Five black portals appeared, and five old men walked out of them.

The Emissary took a step forward.

He reached the storage bag at his waist, pulled out an ornate pedestal, and placed an oath stone atop it. “Emperor ShouLi, you have broken the rules of the Nine Rivers Continent, but, considering your… situation, that can be overlooked. It is time for you to swear your allegiance to the Nine Rivers Saint.”