Immortal of the Nine Realms

Fang Chen smiled softly. ”Will Ancestor Li from the Long family turn a blind eye to this matter?”

Li Changsheng indifferently replied, ”Given the Long Family’s temperament, if you can win the wager for them at the Sword Burial Heavenly Steps, they will help you solve the problems with the Sun Family and the Great Sun Sect.” He paused for a moment before changing his tone. ”But if you perform mediocrely, or if the Long Family loses this wager, the consequences—well, I don’t need to spell it out for you; you should understand.”

Fang Chen nodded. ”That’s simple enough. As long as I win the bet, the Sun family won’t be able to extend their reach here in the short term, and you won’t need to worry too much.”

A cold sneer flashed in Li Changsheng’s eyes. ”Simple? You might be underestimating the sword cultivators from the Prison Wind Lands. Their constant battles year after year make them far stronger than the sword cultivators here.”

He glanced at Stone Dragon and True Monarch Pan Shan. ”I don’t know where you found these two Loose Immortals who are willing to follow your every word, but even if they join forces, they might not be able to defeat me. So how can they stand against the Sun Family?”

Profound Immortal Xiu Yue suddenly cupped her fist and spoke. ”Ancestor Li is right. To solve this problem, the person responsible must bear the burden. If we want to calm the Sun Family’s anger, we must have Sword Leader Fang take responsibility.”

Li Changsheng glanced at her before waving his sleeve, slapping her squarely.

The force of the slap made Profound Immortal Xiu Yue stagger back several steps, eventually falling to the ground.

She stared blankly at Li Changsheng, her eyes filled with confusion.

Li Changsheng mocked, ”You must have followed your sect’s First Rate Sect Leader to the Prison Wind Lands, which is how you came to know Sun Yi and the others.”

”You wanted to make a deal with them to climb higher in the ranks? What a fool. In their eyes, we cultivators are nothing but country bumpkins. No matter how much you flatter them, as long as you’re from the Central Continent, you’ll never be accepted by the true elites. You’re merely trying to make a deal with a tiger.

”You knew that the Great Sun Sect relies heavily on both soul and physical cultivation, so you brought the female cultivators from the Giant Immortal Sect to trade with them? Do you know that the benefit you would’ve gotten would only be temporary? While the Giant Immortal Sect would’ve been reduced to nothing in the Central Continent because of you. In a century, or maybe three to five hundred years at best, the Giant Immortal Sect would disappear.”

Profound Immortal Xiu Yue was shocked. ”Why...?”

”The Great Sun Sect has tens of thousands of disciples, and the Prison Wind Lands has countless sects based on the dual cultivation method of spirit and flesh. How many female cultivators can your Giant Immortal Sect train each year?”

Li Changsheng sneered coldly. ”Because of your actions, the Giant Immortal Sect may very well become a lamb on the chopping block, waiting to be sold off.”

Profound Immortal Xiu Yue gasped in shock, as though realizing the gravity of the situation. Her expression became a little flustered.

Su Mo glanced at her, her face serious. She then looked toward Li Changsheng and cupped her fist. ”Ancestor Li, is there any way to salvage this?”

Glancing at Fang Chen, Li Changsheng replied, ”It all depends on this young man’s performance at the Sword Burial Heavenly Steps. If he performs outstandingly, the Long family will offer protection for this place. If not, you all should start thinking of a way to leave here early.”

Sword Burial Heavenly Steps?

Everyone had heard of it several times but still didn’t know exactly what it was.

Li Changsheng said, ”These young men’s senior is an elder of the Great Sun Sect and is currently with Immortal Monarch Xiaoyao. They should have already learned of their disciples’ troubles and are likely on their way here. I have a bit of face in the Prison Wind Lands. I’ll take care of this matter for you, but you owe me a favor for the Sword Burial Heavenly Steps. You need to put in all your strength to repay me.”

With that, he turned to leave the great hall, vanishing into the horizon.

Suddenly, Fang Chen heard Li Changsheng’s voice in his ear, ”By the way, with your temperament, you wouldn’t be this impulsive. Are you doing this to take revenge for the sword strike I gave to your old sword immortal? If so, we’re even!”

Fang Chen smiled and looked outside the hall.

Su Mo said indifferently, ”Xuan Yue, from today on, you will relinquish your position as peak master and reflect on your actions in seclusion.”

Profound Immortal Xiu Yue nodded with a pale face. ”Yes, Master.”

Profound Immortal Xiu Yue didn’t even look at Fang Chen and Jiang Tian’ai as she led her disciples out of the hall.

Su Mo looked at the corpses of Sun Yi and the others with a complicated expression. ”I know their backgrounds. I initially thought that with Xiu Yue handling this matter, the Giant Immortal Sect wouldn’t get into trouble. But after hearing what Ancestor Li said, I realized that the moment they set foot into the Giant Immortal Sect, trouble had already started brewing. Serious trouble.”

Fang Chen wore a faint smile. ”Empress Su Mo, there’s no need to worry too much. Didn’t he say that as long as I perform well at the Sword Burial Heavenly Steps, the pressure from the Sun family will be borne by others?”

Su Mo looked doubtful. She wanted to ask about the Sword Burial Heavenly Steps, but after thinking for a moment, she decided to keep silent.

She instructed Su Lingzhu to arrange a place for Fang Chen and his group to stay for a few days before leaving with the corpses of Sun Yi and the others.

True Monarch Pan Shan handed several storage rings to Fang Chen. ”Lord, these are their storage rings.”

Fang Chen opened them and looked inside. Most of the rings contained some low-grade and mid-grade spirit stones, but Sun Yi’s ring contained something special.

It looked like a spirit stone, but its aura was entirely different from that of a high-grade spirit stone. It seemed to be made up of various kinds of spiritual energy. Fang Chen sensed a trace of Azure Lightning aura and also detected various elemental forces.

Though it was only the size of a thumb, it contained hundreds of types of spiritual energy, of which he had never heard or seen before.

Fang Chen’s eyes brightened, intrigued. ”What is this?”

Mirror of the Universe said, ”Little Brother... you’ve hit the jackpot. This is an Immortal Crystal. I didn’t expect this kid’s storage ring to have such a valuable item.”

Immortal Crystal?

Fang Chen was slightly taken aback. His initial guess about the item was that it might be a high-grade spirit stone, but the appraisal Mirror of the Universe had given was even more surprising.

”This is an Immortal Crystal used by immortals from the Immortal Realm? Isn’t this rarer than high-grade spirit stones?”

”Immortal Crystals are indeed rarer than even peak-grade spirit stones. But in the Immortal Realm, it is equivalent to a high-grade spirit stone. It is useless to ordinary cultivators, but if an immortal, or a Loose Immortal, absorbs the immortal origin within, not only would it extend their lifespan, but it would also strengthen their immortal body.”

”So, this can also improve a Loose Immortal’s cultivation?”

”Exactly.”

”If I were to exchange this for high-grade spirit stones, how many could I get?”

”That would be a waste! If you really wanted to trade it, exchanging it for around a hundred or eighty would be no problem. You could even get several high-grade spirit stones for it. If an Ascension Realm cultivator had this, their chances of successfully transitioning into a Loose Immortal would greatly increase.”

Fang Chen couldn’t help but feel amazed. To think that even Sun Yi’s storage ring had an Immortal Crystal inside.

It seemed that Loose Immortals from the Land of Prison Winds regularly used such items. Perhaps this Immortal Crystal was why Li Changsheng was able to become a Loose Immortal while the old sword immortal wasn’t.

”What a pity... the major yin demons around you can’t use this item, and you yourself can’t either. Looks like we will have to make do with selling this Immortal Crystal for money.”

”Not necessarily,” replied Fang Chen, thinking of Elder Xun.

Elder Xun would owe him a big favor for this.