Great Li Martial God

Without Li Musheng acting, none of them would be standing here right now. They would all long since have become ghosts beneath the hands of the Falling God Peak grandmaster and the honored elders.

In every sense, Li Musheng had not only saved the Tianjin Guards, he had saved their lives.

At that moment, faced with everyone’s bows and salutes, Li Musheng waved a hand and looked toward Fu Qiwen, ”Now that Lord Fu has arrived, it means everything went smoothly along the way. The business of destroying Falling God Peak tonight can be considered satisfactorily concluded.”

Fu Qiwen lowered his head slightly and clasped his hands, speaking with feeling, ”It is entirely owing to Your Highness. That Your servant has lived to see Falling God Peak, that giant of the martial world, brought down in his own lifetime, is the greatest honor of this servant’s life.”

At those words, the other Tianjin Guards commanders all joined in, one after another expressing their gratitude to Li Musheng for acting as he had tonight.

And those martial world experts who had come to assist the Tianjin Guards had nearly all carried a blood debt against Falling God Peak.

On this journey, Li Musheng had allowed them to see their great vengeance fulfilled at last, and all of them were deeply grateful to him.

Faced with such a round of praise, Li Musheng found it all quite pleasant to hear.

Though cutting down the Falling God Peak grandmaster and the four honored elders had been nothing more than a trivial matter to him, the sense of appreciation and admiration that Fu Qiwen and the others were providing was very much being delivered in full measure.

Especially the Soaring Vulture Sect leader, Gu Shengfeng. After expressing his gratitude to Li Musheng for acting on their behalf, he turned back to a martial world expert beside him and said quietly, ”This Eighth Prince is not only awe-inspiring in his martial cultivation, but so young, and so handsome. When his name shakes the entire martial world in the future, who knows how many women of the martial world he will captivate.”These words naturally did not escape Li Musheng’s ears.

At once, his opinion of this Soaring Vulture Sect leader rose considerably.

A person with this much good taste was someone he genuinely appreciated, and he privately resolved to ask Fu Qiwen to bring this sect leader into the Tianjin Guards as well at some point.

The Tianjin Guards could use more people like this.

After that, Fu Qiwen gave Li Musheng a general account of events along the way, then had the others temporarily withdraw.

Only Fu Qiwen, Hu Rui’an, and a number of close confidants remained.

”Your Highness, this Falling God Peak holds martial arts manuals beyond count, as well as wealth and resources accumulated over the generations that are almost impossible to imagine.”

Fu Qiwen now brought up what was, after the destruction of Falling God Peak, the most important matter to attend to.

The Great Li court’s drive to destroy the four great martial world sects was motivated not only by the harm those sects had done to the country and the people, but even more importantly, by the court’s desire to seize the accumulated wealth of generations those sects had built up.

This included their territories, their wealth, their martial arts manuals, and more.

If the four great sects could be taken down, the strength of the Great Li court would grow enormously, and it would soar to become the most powerful empire among the five great nations of the world.

This was also one of the primary reasons Emperor Yuanwu had long been plotting against the four great martial world sects.

Though only Falling God Peak had been taken tonight, the gains were already enormous.

After all, Falling God Peak’s main presence had been spread across four provinces of Great Li, and after so many years of accumulation and extraction, the sect’s operations and holdings were without number. It was no exaggeration to say the wealth involved could rival that of a nation.

When Fu Qiwen suddenly raised this matter, Li Musheng raised an eyebrow and said, ”Lord Fu can handle these things on his own. There is no need to report them to me.”

His intention was simply to avoid getting bogged down in tedious administrative details. He still had the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture to work on.

However, Fu Qiwen shook his head and clasped his hands, replying in a firm, low voice, ”These things now belong to the Great Li court and to His Majesty. This servant cannot make any moves on his own. They must be handled in Your Highness’s presence and under Your Highness’s supervision.”

At those words, Li Musheng looked at Fu Qiwen. Seeing the man’s earnest request, he had no choice but to agree to accompany him for a look.

The big black cat beside him, however, seemed to find Falling God Peak’s accumulated wealth very interesting indeed, and immediately fell into step behind them.

Before long, using leads obtained through questioning, Fu Qiwen made his way to the location of the sect’s treasury, which lay concealed within the mountainside of the main peak. It was not particularly hard to find, the mechanisms protecting it were simply quite complex.

After all, from Falling God Peak’s perspective, how many people in all of Great Li’s martial world could possibly invade the sect’s main peak and steal things from right under the eyes of so many powerful martial artists?

Before long, Li Musheng, the big black cat, and the others followed Fu Qiwen’s group in breaking through the mechanisms one by one and entering the treasury.

When the heavy black iron doors of the vault swung open, even Fu Qiwen and the others came to a stunned halt.

What met their eyes was what appeared to be an endless expanse of gold and silver piled into mountains, alongside chest after chest of jewels and precious stones all sealed with labels.

Beyond that, there was not a single other item in the entire treasury. Just pure, genuine wealth in its most direct form.

Li Musheng was also visibly taken aback for a moment at the sight.

Though his martial cultivation had reached the highest of peaks, between his previous life and this one, he had never seen such an amount of gold and silver even in a film.

What lay before his eyes truly was, in every sense of the word, mountains of gold and mountains of silver.

”Truly remarkable wealth.”

Li Musheng could not help letting out a sigh.

Just the gold alone, judging by the skyrocketing price of gold he remembered from before his transmigration, would have made the world’s richest people look modest. He imagined it could buy several countries without much difficulty.

The big black cat, who had been following beside him, now had its green eyes wide open and glowing, and instinctively began padding on its legs toward the mountains of gold in the treasury ahead, the jade stele still on its back.

But it had not gone far before a low voice came from behind it, ”Lord Fu, about that... do remember to have one of these mountains of gold delivered directly to my new residence in the imperial capital.”

Li Musheng’s words were clearly directed not at the big black cat but at Fu Qiwen.

At those words, Fu Qiwen snapped back from his daze at the sight of the gold and silver, and gave Li Musheng a look with a slightly complicated expression, hesitating before asking, ”Your Highness, are you certain you wish to do this?”

”Of course.”

Li Musheng gave a firm nod.

He was not actually short of money. The gifts he had received in the imperial capital alone were enough to last him several lifetimes.

And with his martial cultivation at the level it was, if he truly needed money, he could always simply take it from those who had more than they needed.

It was just that seeing this much gold, he felt it would be something of a loss to walk away without taking a little.

After all, he had been the driving force behind bringing Falling God Peak down. Getting a small cut of the proceeds seemed only reasonable.

As for seizing all of it for himself, that was not something Li Musheng had any intention of doing.

To be truthful, once gold accumulated past a certain point, it was nothing more than an extremely valuable stack of bricks. It served no real purpose for him.

As a certain wealthy man from his previous life had once said, when money reaches a certain amount, it is just a string of numbers. There is simply no way to spend it all.

Seeing that Li Musheng was set on taking one mountain of gold, Fu Qiwen was not in a position to say much.

To call Li Musheng greedy seemed wrong, given how much was in the vault and that he had chosen only a single mountain of gold.

To say he was not greedy also seemed wrong, since he had still asked for one mountain of gold.

Even so, though Fu Qiwen could not quite read Li Musheng’s thinking, he immediately spoke, ”Your Highness, rest assured. This servant will see to it. Not a single thing that could be used against you will be left.”

At those words, Li Musheng gave him a glance and waved his hand, leaving Fu Qiwen to handle it as he saw fit.

What handles or not handles, he did not care in the slightest. He certainly did not feel that taking a bit of gold meant he needed to answer to anyone.

Then Li Musheng, with Fu Qiwen accompanying him, made a circuit of the treasury.

There were no martial arts manuals, elixirs, or weapons to be found inside. Those were clearly stored somewhere else in Falling God Peak.

Of course, he had no interest in any of those things either. He simply thought it rather pleasant for Emperor Yuanwu, that old man, to have made such a handsome profit from all of this.

”All right, Lord Fu can handle the rest of this as he sees fit.”

Li Musheng waved a hand, satisfied enough with his mountain of gold, and turned to leave.

At that moment, the big black cat glanced left and right, then with a speed that left no room for the eye to follow, shot out a paw and snatched a piece of gold from one of the mountains, then tucked it under its belly.

After which it strolled out after Li Musheng with the casual air of a cat who had done nothing whatsoever out of the ordinary.

Li Musheng caught the movement with a barely perceptible sideways glance, and naturally saw everything.

He said nothing at all.

This was clearly a greedy cat.

But as they said in the world of cat keeping from his previous life, a cat with a flaw is a cat that is easier to manage.

After Li Musheng and the big black cat left the treasury, they returned to the Falling God Peak main hall.

He planned to spend the night here, and set out on the return journey the following morning at dawn.

After that, Li Musheng spent roughly two hours, and just as the sky was beginning to lighten, he completed the full refinement of the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture.

The version of the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture he had now completed was something entirely transformed from what it had been before.

Not only could it absorb Azure Dragon True Qi, it could now also absorb powers from legendary divine beasts comparable to the Qilin Blood and the Vermilion Bird Bone.

”It cannot be called the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture anymore. It should be called the Divine Beast Power Consumption Art.”

Li Musheng raised an eyebrow, and immediately gave the new technique a suitably impressive new name.

Then he looked toward the big black cat sleeping nearby, the Divine Talent Stele still riding on its back even as it slept.

”You know Murong Xiaoya, yes? Go and invite her here for me.”

Li Musheng roused the big black cat from its sleep and assigned it a task.

The big black cat blinked open its green eyes, which were not yet fully awake, gave its head a shake, stretched out with a long yawn, let out a meow, and padded off on its cat legs toward the doors of the hall.

Shen Anran and Murong Xiaoya had already arrived at the main peak following Hu Rui’an, and both of them had naturally long since heard of Li Musheng’s exploits in Hundred Refinements City.

Though they had known Li Musheng’s martial cultivation was unfathomably deep, there had been moments along the way where they had still worried for him, because he had been up against something as enormous and formidable as Falling God Peak.

But after learning that Li Musheng had single-handedly cut down the Falling God Peak grandmaster and all four honored elders, any worry on his behalf had proven entirely unnecessary.

And since arriving at the main peak, Li Musheng had also noticed that Shen Anran, who had always been easily moved to romantic feeling, had grown increasingly devoted to him.

...

In the faint and hazy early light, the big black cat left the Falling God Peak main hall and then suddenly stopped.

In the next instant, the not-quite-awake look it had been wearing vanished entirely.

The big black cat turned and glanced back at the hall, then narrowed its green eyes.

Then it quickly reached a paw beneath its own belly and quietly retrieved the gold piece it had hidden there earlier.

After confirming that the gold was perfectly intact, the big black cat’s eyes curved into pleased crescents. Then it tucked the gold carefully away again, and went to carry out Li Musheng’s errand.

But just as the big black cat was moving away from the hall, a bird swooped down from the dim morning sky and flew quickly toward it.

The big black cat seemed to sense something, lifted its head, and saw a jet-black bird circling above its head while chirping and chattering away at it.

The big black cat appeared to understand what the other party was saying, and immediately let out a meow in a tone that was clearly wary.

The black bird, after listening to what the big black cat had to say, fixed both eyes rigidly on the dark jade stele.

At the same time, on the other end of the connection, Lin Yuer directing the bird finally confirmed that the dark jade stele before her was without question the stone stele they had been sent to find.

She immediately began trying to persuade her little sister to quietly slip away with the dark jade stele.

The big black cat, however, paid absolutely no attention, and instead fixed the bird overhead with a cold look and let out a few sharp meows.

At those words, Lin Yuer immediately fell silent and did not dare say another word.

Because she had just learned from her little sister’s own mouth that the dark jade stele now belonged to Li Musheng.

And having witnessed Li Musheng’s terrifying power firsthand, how could she possibly dare take something that belonged to him? Only someone tired of living would try.

”So the task the sect assigned us this time is not going to be completed.”

In the forest outside the Falling God Peak main peak, Lin Yuer let out a quiet sigh.

But then, very quickly, her expression shifted.

Through the bird’s vision, she had just caught sight of a shadow blending into the darkness and moving rapidly toward the big black cat.

In the next instant, that shadow spread and expanded in a flash, and in the blink of an eye had coiled itself around the dark jade stele on the big black cat’s back, already beginning to slip away with it.

The big black cat sensed something was wrong and gave a startled cry, immediately slashing out a paw toward the shadow.

But the shadow was like smoke and mist, and with the faintest flicker it simply shifted to one side, leaving the cat’s paw to swipe at nothing but air.

At the sight, Lin Yuer’s expression changed sharply, and she immediately turned toward Wu Yong standing at her side, demanding urgently, ”What do you think you are doing? Put that jade stele down at once!”

But Wu Yong was clearly unmoved.

His aged face now wore a look of cold resolve, and he said in a low, firm voice, ”You do not understand what that jade stele is worth. Tonight, we must get our hands on it no matter what.”

At those words, Lin Yuer’s brow furrowed sharply, and anxiety spread across her face as she quickly explained, ”That jade stele now belongs to that prince. Snatching something from a tiger’s mouth like this is no different from asking to die.”

Wu Yong’s eyelid gave a hard twitch, and it was clear that his heart was far from calm.

Even so, he showed no sign of being willing to give up. His expression hardened, and he said coldly, ”Our innate divine abilities are different from martial cultivation techniques. We are also far enough away from him right now. As long as I am fast enough and take the stele before he notices, even someone with cultivation as supreme as his will not be able to do anything to us.”

And at that same moment, the shadow, having coiled itself around the dark jade stele, slipped at tremendous speed back into the darkness, and in an instant had become one with the night and vanished entirely.

The big black cat let out a furious cry and immediately broke into a run to give chase, but the shadow had disappeared too quickly, and in the blink of an eye there was no trace of it anywhere.

Seeing this, the big black cat turned and glared with fury at the bird Lin Yuer had been directing.

And Lin Yuer, unable to stop Wu Yong, did not dare linger another moment, and immediately severed her connection to the bird.