Chapter 3 – Probe
Book 15, Priceless Treasure – Chapter 3, Probe
Linley, Salomon, and the others instantly disappeared from the round table, reappearing at the translucent window. They all looked out through the translucent window…
In mid-air, there were hundreds of figures standing there, with the leader being a tall, slender figure with hair that was graying but a face which was exceedingly handsome. He seemed like a young man, and he had a sword on his back.
“Carrying a sword on his back?” Linley was puzzled.
In the Infernal Realm, very few experts would carry their weapons on their bodies. Most of them would keep them stored in their interspatial rings.
“So many Highgods!” The handsome youth’s face suddenly changed slightly as well. As the leader of an extremely famous bandit group within a circumference of a million kilometers, he knew exactly which caravans could be robbed and which ones could not.
“Lord, shall we attack?” A God behind him said quietly.
The handsome youth didn’t hesitate at all, immediately turning. “Attack? Your brain has problems. Everyone, retreat!” Instantly, the hundreds of bandits all fled downwards at high speed.
As for the metallic lifeform, without being affected at all, it continued to make its way forward.
Within the metallic creature.
Linley’s group returned to their original seats, and that Salomon laughed calmly. “Looks like I was a bit too nervous. Those bandits are far more cowardly than I had imagined. Those people immediately fled before our people even went outside.”
Linley laughed as well.
Just then, he really had been quite startled.
When Salomon had said there was a divine sense probe, but he himself hadn’t discovered it, naturally that meant that the prober was a Highgod. To Linley, a Highgod was someone he had to be cautious about.
“Mr. Salomon.” Delia laughed. “Don’t worry too much. No matter how powerful the bandits are, our metallic lifeform has Mr. Learmonth, right? With him, it’s not necessary for us to worry.” Delia wasn’t too worried.
Salomon nodded in agreement.
“Delia, you can’t say that.” Linley said.
“Oh?” Delia looked at Linley.
Linley warned, “Bandits groups are virtually all made up of Gods. Generally speaking, bandit groups that have a Highgod are top of the line groups. If a bandit group is so powerful as to have multiple Highgods, then the number of Gods in that group will also be exceedingly large.”
Salomon and Delia both nodded.
They all saw how that bandit group just now had a single Highgod, but hundreds of others.
“If they really attack, true, we don’t need to fear the experts amongst them, as Learmonth and the others will deal with them. But with enemy forces being so numerous, we might be faced with the combined attacks of a large group of Gods.” Linley said resignedly. “After all, we only have a hundred or so Gods.”
Delia just came to this realization.
If they truly ran into a chaotic group battle, then how many people could Learmonth kill by himself at the same time? And even if he was able to save Linley and the others, perhaps he wouldn’t even care to.
They were neither family nor friends; why save them?
“It seems it is still best for us to be careful.” Delia said.
“Boss, what are you all talking about?” Bebe and Nisse walked over together.
When Linley looked at Bebe and Nisse, he couldn’t help but start to laugh. “Bebe, I’ve discovered that you and Nisse actually look rather similar.”
“What?” Bebe looked confused, and then a look of sudden understanding appeared on his face. “Oh, I get it. Boss, have you discovered that you and Delia also look rather similar?”
Linley was startled. He couldn’t help but share a glance with Delia.
Husband and wife would naturally have a bit of the same aura.
“This is known as, ‘spouses look alike’. Thus, Nisse and I look rather similar.” Bebe’s eyes fluttered as he looked at Nisse. “Nisse, am I right?”
Nisse snorted, but her eyes had a hint of delight in them as well.
Linley and Salomon exchanged a glance, then laughed. Bebe and Nisse…it seemed the two of them really did have a possibility of being together.
……………..
The metallic lifeform’s journey was very peaceful. Linley’s group spent most of their time in training. Although Royalwing City and their destination, Bluemaple City, were four billion kilometers apart, that was if they travelled in a straight line. Linley’s group did not, however, travel in a straight line. They had to avoid some dangerous areas.
In the blink of an eye, another four years passed. In Linley and Delia’s room.
“Whew.” Linley opened his eyes.
Delia seemed to have sensed something, and she opened her eyes as well. “Linley, why did you stop training?”
“Delia, I’ve reached a bottleneck in my training of the ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’ in the Elemental Laws of the Wind.” Linley said with a strange expression.
“Bottleneck? How is that possible?” Delia was greatly startled.
Generally speaking, only after reaching the very end would a bottleneck appear when one was training in a profound mystery of the Laws. During the early and middle stages, one might be slow but one wouldn’t encounter any bottlenecks.
“Linley, last time, didn’t you say that it would take you another twenty or thirty years to completely fuse them?” Delia asked.
“Delia, four years ago, I guessed that I would need another twenty years before reaching a bottleneck, and then a few more years to break through the bottleneck to achieve mastery!” Linley shook his head and laughed. “But I was wrong. The profound mysteries of the Laws aren’t what I took them to be; I thought that the further I went along, the harder it would be.”
“I didn’t train in the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects separately. I compare and contrast them against each other and train them together.”
“At first, it was true that I needed more and more time, but as I trained to the later stages and continued to compare, contrast, and hypothesize, my breakthrough speed actually increased. The ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects are akin to two roads which first start off in opposite directions, and so the further you walk along them, the more distant each road will be come. However, when reaching a certain distance, the two will begin to draw close to each other. As you compare and contrast them, the two roads will draw nearer and nearer, and now, I’ve already reached the end stages of fusing them together.” Linley shook his head. “Only, I’ve become stuck in this training bottleneck.”
Delia began to understand it generally.
As a God of the wind-style, Delia also had trained in the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ profound mysteries.
However, Delia was not able to make them fuse, nor did she understand…how the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ profound mysteries, seemingly opposites, could be fused together.
“Come, let’s go get some food.” Linley wasn’t going to try and force it. Upon reaching a bottleneck, he would first relax and then train later.
“Another divine sense?” Linley suddenly frowned.
Just now, a God-level divine sense swept over the metallic lifeform.
Delia laughed. “On the way over, we’ve encountered so many probes. Even Gods dare to use their divine sense to probe us. Most likely, if they found that we are very weak, they would immediately come to attack and loot us.”
“Forget them.” Linley was irritated with these bandit groups as well.
The people in this metallic lifeform had become accustomed to the divine sense probes of these bandit groups. They couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to them. After all, they knew…that if they were to leave the metallic lifeform to attack the bandits, they probably wouldn’t be able to catch that many.
Today, yet another Highgod divine sense swept across the metallic lifeform.
But the Fiends inside the metallic lifeform continued to drink, to train, to chat. Nobody cared.
“Everyone, disperse!”
A youth with curly silver hair led his hundred subordinates to rush down and flee, retreating into the depths of the mountain valleys below.
“Whoooosh!” The metallic creature didn’t slow down in the slightest, disappearing into the horizons.
But deep within a deep gorge.
“Drip, drip…”
Water flowed through the channels of a creek.
“After waiting so many years, I’ve finally encountered you.” The youth with curly silver hair stood atop the pool of water. Behind him, a muscular black-robed man was standing respectfully.
“Hayde!” The silver-haired youth said coldly.
“Lord.” The black-robed man bowed.
The silver-haired youth said seriously, “Immediately notify young master Inigo [Yi’ni’ge]. Tell him that we have discovered the squad where those two old fellows are in. As long as the young master knows that the metallic lifeform passed by our place, he will easily be able to judge the general direction it will head in next.”
“Yes, milord.”
The black-robed man nodded slightly.
Hundreds of millions of kilometers away from the silver-haired youth, within Red Orchid City, there was a hotel that had been completely booked by a group of hundreds of people.
In one of the courtyards within the hotel, there was a devilish youth with long, blood-red hair who was seated on a chair, flipping through a heavy tome. A nearby servant said respectfully, “Young master, Hayde is outside waiting to see you.”
“Hayde?” The blood-red haired youth frowned. “Who is Hayde?”
“One of our messengers.” The servant said respectfully.
In the Infernal Realm, messages were usually carried by someone who had divine clones located in separate areas.
For example, one might be in the Nightblaze Prefecture, while the other might be in the Rainbow Prefecture. Although there was a distance of billions of kilometers, since the two clones really were the same person, anything one clone knew, the other one billions of kilometers away would also know.
This was a fairly normal form of communication in the Infernal Realm.
“We finally found those two old fellows?” The youth immediately was overjoyed. “Hurry up and have him come in.”
“Yes.”
A man who looked identically to the muscular black-robed man called ‘Hayde’ entered the courtyard, immediately falling respectfully to one knee. “Young master Inigo, Lord Padgett [Pa’ji’te] has instructed me to inform you, young master, that the metallic lifeforms carrying those two old fellows just passed by his location.”
“Oh?”
Inigo was instantly overjoyed. With a flip of his hand, an enormous detailed map appeared on the table.
“Passed by Padgett? Then it seems the squad these two fellows are travelling in will pass through this place, the Nisiwan [Ni’si’wan] Mountain Range. Since they’ve selected this route, then…” Inigo stared at the map, a hint of a smile on his face.
“The web I set up has finally found those two old fellows.”
Inigo nodded slightly. “I don’t know how strong the Fiends which those two old fellows have recruited are. Right. I first have to probe them.”
“Immediately sent a message back and tell Vionnaz [Wei’ao’na]. Have him prepare his forces and immediately go to the area near the Bulu [Bu’lu] River. Those two old fellows will definitely pass through his area.” Inigo immediately instructed his servant.
“Yes, young master.” The servant immediately acknowledged and left.
Right now, the only one left in the courtyard was Inigo.
Inigo narrowed his eyes slightly, murmuring, “Those two old fellows. They’ve taken all the wealth of their master’s clan and run all the way to the Redbud Continent. They definitely have major aims.” And then, Inigo sneered coldly. “But no matter what they are aiming for, once I get the astonishing wealth which those two old fellows are carrying, I will benefit tremendously.”
Inigo’s face was all smiles.
“The ancient Boyd [Bo’yi] clan. How much wealth have they accumulated?” Inigo’s eyes were filled with intrigue.
“Inigo.” Suddenly, an ancient voice rang out, and a silver-haired elder wearing a green robe entered the courtyard.
“Oh, Teacher.” Inigo hurriedly said.
The green-robed silver-haired elder shook his head. “Inigo, you’ve brought so many people with you and spent so much money. If you end up getting nothing, then…”
“Teacher.” Inigo said in a quiet voice. “Don’t worry. If I fail, then the wealth I built up over all these years will be gone, that’s all. But if I succeed…Teacher, the Boyd clan is finished, but those two old fellows took all of their wealth as they fled.”
“The massive wealth accumulated by the Boyd clan over all those years.” Inigo’s heart trembled just thinking of it.
But the green-robed elder still frowned. “Inigo, think about it. If you had such an astonishing amount of wealth, why wouldn’t you hide? Instead, they invited all of those Fiends to escort them. It seems as though they are actually intending to return to the Jadefloat Continent.”
Inigo frowned. “As for this, I’m rather curious as well.”
“If I were in their shoes, I would have fled and disappeared long ago.” Inigo laughed. “However, Teacher, no matter what, right now, we have already discovered their traces. As long as we kill those two old folks and seize their interspatial ring…”
“I hope you will be successful.” The green-robed elder said.