Tribulation of Myriad Races

Numerous thoughts surfaced in Su Yu’s mind when he put on Profound Nine’s mask. But soon, something else distracted him.

When his gaze landed on a death spirit outside.

Death spirit: Skysoar

Su Yu was stunned when a row of words appeared before his eyes. Did this mask come with identification functionalities? What was this? Something similar to the Perception Jade?

But its range was clearly much shorter than the jade. Su Yu took the mask off with an odd feeling. Could this be considered a special weapon? He was a weaponsmith as well. Thus, he was alarmed after studying the mask for a bit. Was this…an earth weapon?

Just how rich was the damn pavilion? A single white mask like this was an earth weapon? He put the mask back on and dragged the little furball out. But the result was completely unexpected.

Unknown race, unknown strength

Everything about the furball was unknown.

Unknown race? Su Yu was surprised. Was this due to a lack of information in Profound Nine’s mask or was this race unknown to even the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion? No way…right?

Perhaps Profound Nine’s mask was simply not advanced enough, resulting in a lack of information. The furball’s race should not be completely unknown, right? While he was staring at the little furball, the little furball was staring at him doubtfully as well.

What? Did Yummy think that he could hide himself by simply wearing a mask? Impossible! No matter how stinky Yummy became, he would never forget the Yummy’s unique scent.

“Wait, I remember all these Heavenly Hunt Pavilion members have those special notebooks they write on.”

Yes. Instead of index copies, the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion members relied on those special notebooks for communication. But he couldn’t see such a book anywhere. Perhaps Profound Nine had destroyed it before dying.

Su Yu guessed that those notebooks were probably similar in function to the index copies. Perhaps that was simply a version meant for internal circulation while the index copies were meant for external circulation.

He picked up the index copy. Just as he thought about the special notebook, a white beam shot out of his mask and landed on the index copy. Right before his eyes, the index copy transformed into the familiar notebook.

Su Yu was stunned. Was this…supposed to happen?

On the cover of the book, two words appeared: Profound Nine.

***

At the same time.

Heavenly Hunt Pavilion.

Inside a large hall.

The number of gathered faceless elders had dropped significantly. Only a few of them were left. One of them shook slightly. He took out a book and checked the contents.

Profound Nine. Dead.

But shortly after, the dim name lit up again: 1982nd Profound Nine, real name Su Yu, human, Cloudbreach, Great Xia

The elder’s expression changed. Profound Nine was dead! That wasn’t too surprising. He was already aware of Profound Nine’s approaching death before this. He was more surprised by the fact that Su Yu had actually accepted Profound Nine’s mask. He had thought that Su Yu would refuse the offer.

***

At the same time.

Feeling doubtful, Su Yu took off the mask and inspected it yet again. Shortly after, he put it back on and entered a certain question into the mask through his willpower: Where are you?

***

Heavenly Hunt Pavilion.

The elder had an odd expression. Did that kid discover the special functions of the mask so soon? A genius was indeed different from others.

The mask did not come with an instruction manual. If one obtained it by coincidence, one would have to explore its functions without any guidance. But these so-called coincidences were rarely true coincidences. After all, these masks could only be passed on voluntarily or they would self-destruct.

“I’m in the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion.” The elder replied. But after thinking about it, he added a longer reply, “Don’t worry. Only the direct elder of the mask can track its location. The first ten numbers of the Profound Department are all under my direct management. I am the only person capable of tracking your location. Your Heavenly Hunt Directory is bound to your mask, so nobody can track you through it either.”

***

“…”

Su Yu was completely stunned. That was merely a random test he did because something felt off. No matter what, he was an earth weaponsmith. He was still able to discover some clues about what the mask should be able to do if he studied it thoroughly enough.

Surprisingly, someone actually replied.

An elder of the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion! An elder who was also the direct superior of Profound Nine from the Profound Department.

“Elder of the Profound Department? What’s your name? Do you know my name?”

After thinking about it, the elder replied, “Su Yu of the human race.”

Holy shit!

Su Yu cursed inwardly. What bullshit! Sure enough, the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion was not to be trusted. Then again, this was expected. There was no way the elder wouldn’t know his identity.

“Can you track my location?”

“Yes. Since you’ve put the mask on, you’re now Profound Nine. Of course, you’re free to quit at any time. You only need to destroy the mask if you wish to quit. But since you’re already one of us, we will naturally stop selling your information. You can act as normal. Your life won’t be affected.”

Su Yu asked, “Why did you insist on recruiting me?”

“It wasn’t that we’re insisting for you to join. Rather, a lot of other geniuses are also our members. Of course, you won’t know who they are. Not even I know that information. I only have access to the information of the first ten profound masks.”

The elder explained, “Recruiting geniuses is an ongoing practice of the pavilion.”

Su Yu ignored the explanation and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Each elder has their own codenames. You may address me as First Profound Elder. After me, there are Second Profound Elder, Third Profound Elder, and so on. The concepts of Ten Heavenly Stems and Twelve Earthly Branches are not unique to the human race. These concepts are used across all races. Each elder corresponds to one of them. Thus, the maximum number of elders in a single department will not surpass twenty-two. But in truth, these ranks have never been fully filled.”

Understanding dawned on Su Yu. There were twenty-two elders per department. Four departments would result in eighty-eight elders. Including the two spires and two chambers, it would be truly terrifying if they could fill all these ranks.

One ought to remember that only late-stage Sunmoons could become elders. How many Sunmoons in total were there in the entire human race?

Su Yu wasn’t too sure about that. But as far as he knew, there were only Zhu Tiandao, Niu Baidao, Umbra, the general of the Heavenly Dao Army, the general of the Iron Cavalry, and Ye Hongyan in Great Ming. These were the six late-stage Sunmoons he knew of.

As for Great Xia, he only knew of Xia Longwu, Marquis Xia, Administrator Hu, and the general of the Devil Subduing Army. But the general did not seem to be a late-stage Sunmoon. He was not too sure about that. As for General Zhao, he believed General Zhao wasn’t even a Sunmoon. Right, there was also that mount of the deceased second principal…

These four were the late-stage Sunmoons he knew of. Naturally, Great Xia probably had more late-stage Sunmoons he didn’t know about. He had only met several members of the Martial Dragon Guard and Great Ming’s Shadow Guard. And all of them were incredibly strong.

Great Xia and Great Ming were already the more powerful prefectures of the Human Realm. As for the other prefectures, even if he assumed there were about five or six in each of them, humanity would probably have only about two hundred late-stage Sunmoons.

Or maybe more since he had to take into consideration the experts who had been around during the period when humanity founded all those prefectures. But most of these old experts were not that far from death. Some had even died in seclusion.

Meanwhile, there could possibly be over a hundred late-stage Sunmoons in the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion.

How terrifying.

There was a big difference between an entire race and an organization. The human race could be considered a major race. It had countless talented individuals and only the best of the best could grow into late-stage Sunmoons.

If Profound Nine’s words were to be believed, the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion mostly focused its recruitment efforts on individuals with great grudges or terrible pasts from the various realms. Strictly speaking, there were very few truly talented individuals among these people. Even so, they were able to accumulate such a large number of late-stage Sunmoons.

It was worth noting that without sufficient talent, no amount of wealth could make one an expert.

Su Yu thought that his old man was one such example. His old man was too untalented. He could throw money at his father all he wanted, but his father would never grow into an expert. Even if he could push his old man into the Mountainsea Realm, his old man would only be a weak Mountainsea. As for the Sunmoon Realm, that was even more impossible.

Su Yu asked, “Is the First Profound Elder, the strongest elder of the Profound Department?”

“Not necessarily.” The elder explained, “You’re Profound Nine. But is there a guarantee that you’re weaker than Profound Eight or Profound Seven? The number is not representative of one’s strength. Some of these codenames have been inherited from the previous generation. Perhaps back during the first generation, the codenames were assigned based on the strength of their holders. But after so many generations, that is no longer the case.”

Understanding dawned on Su Yu.

“So I only need to keep the mask on to officially become a member?”

“Yes. This remains true even when you take the mask off. It will only change when you destroy the mask. When that happens, the pavilion will forge a new Profound Nine mask and await the next Profound Nine.”

“How many members are there in the Profound Department?”

“I don’t know.”

“…”

Su Yu believed that the elder was lying to him. The elder was giving him bullshit answers.