Chapter 1975 World Poetry Competition
Immemorial black heaven.
"They're here!" An Xun shouted excitedly.
Under his silent supervision, a soul beast army of a thousand charged towards his ambush.
Once they entered his range, An Xun activated his ambushing soul beasts, attacking all of the wild soul beasts from all sides.
While An Xun controlled the soul beast army, he activated Immortal Gu and unleashed all sorts of immortal killer moves.
As his killer moves landed on them, the soul beasts on his side gained a boost in battle strength, speed, and defense to some degree.
This battle lasted for several minutes, An Xun successfully killed four hundred wild soul beasts while the rest were captured.
"Master!" An Xun gathered a pile of soul cores and offered them to Spectral Soul.
Spectral Soul opened his mouth and absorbed all of these soul cores into his body, starting to digest them.
After last time when he secretly followed An Xun and enslaved him, Spectral Soul managed to get his plan started.
He secretly passed the profundities of soul path cultivation to An Xun, according to the soul path Immortal Gu that An Xun had, he personally created soul path killer moves for him.
An Xun's strength continued to rise, he took many missions to capture soul beasts.
For this purpose, Spectral Soul created two methods, one could find out the location of wild soul beasts, the other was a simplified immortal formation that could lure soul beasts after it was set up.
With these two methods, An Xun captured wild soul beasts with much higher efficiency, each mission was completed to a high degree.
Lady Cold Ash saw that her nephew did not let down her expectations but even went beyond that and shined brightly, she was very happy about it.
Within Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, Lady Cold Ash was the only rank eight, she was naturally their leader.
Below her were An Chong and An Xun. Last time, when Ice Crystal Immortal Monarch opened his grotto-heaven and invited them, Lady Cold Ash brought the two of them with her, she wanted to let them gain some experience, and also let them meet up with others to become acquainted with other Gu Immortals.
When Lady Cold Ash was in the meeting in the grotto-heaven, An Chong and An Xun stayed outside the grotto-heaven and talked with the other rank seven elites of other grotto-heavens.
But Lady Cold Ash did not know that An Xun was already turned into Spectral Soul's slave. In fact, the entire Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, including herself, was currently targeted by Spectral Soul, their future was bleak.
The more missions he completed, and the higher the completion rate, the more advantage An Xun would have in this competition.
Lady Cold Ash could see this, the other Gu Immortals in the grotto-heaven also noticed this.
One day, Lady Cold Ash summoned An Chong as she instructed: "Since the last time Ice Crystal Immortal Monarch called for us to have a meeting, he was very active in asking the grotto-heavens to work together. But in Central Continent's black heaven, there are many variant humans but only two rank eight humans including me. Thankfully, I have already contacted Granny Skeleton, she is a rank eight Gu Immortal of Eastern Sea's black heaven. In this journey to Eastern Sea, you are representing Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, you will meet with Granny Skeleton and show our sincerity to cooperate."
"Yes." An Chong replied, feeling bitter inside.
He knew Lady Cold Ash's intention.
By sending him on this mission, she was helping An Xun to claim victory, he was going to become the nurturing target of Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven.
If An Xun performed similarly to himself, An Chong would feel unresigned and angry. But An Xun did really well, far better than him, even An Chong felt that he had no chance to win.
He accepted this mission, he took some immortal materials from Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven's inventory as a meeting gift.
After leaving Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, he passed the heavenly wind qi wall and arrived in the five regions.
He concealed his traces and went from Central Continent to Eastern Sea. Next, he went through the heavenly wind qi wall in Eastern Sea and to Granny Skeleton's area.
When the regional walls existed, Gu Immortals had a lot of trouble crossing regions. Many strong Gu Immortals would choose to travel using the two heavens.
But now that the regional walls had vanished, even a black heaven Gu Immortal like An Chong could travel through the five regions.
Black heaven had a dangerous environment, it would be troublesome if one met an immemorial desolate beast. Even though An Chong had an immemorial soul beast hiding in his immortal aperture, he only had rank seven cultivation level after all. Especially now when the qi tides were rampaging, the five regions Gu Immortals had to recuperate, they rarely moved around. Thus, it was easy for An Chong to travel.
Along the way, An Chong found that the five regions were facing huge disasters, the qi tides had caused much destruction.
Regardless, he did not meet with any unexpected mishaps, he successfully arrived in Eastern Sea and went up to immemorial black heaven. According to the communication method left by Lady Cold Ash, he successfully went into Shattered Bone grotto-heaven and met with Granny Skeleton.
"Fate has been destroyed, the qi tides are surging. With the current changing world, if we do not cooperate, the future will be uncertain. We are all humans, we should work together and stay united." Granny Skeleton did not create problems for An Chong, she agreed immediately.
Granny Skeleton continued: "However, in Eastern Sea's black heaven, variant human forces are more dominant. Lady Cold Ash wants us to cooperate, why would Ice Crystal Immortal Monarch do nothing? He must be gathering the variant human forces of the other regions' black heaven as well."
An Chong knew that Granny Skeleton would not say unimportant things, he quickly asked: "Senior, what insight might you have?"
Granny Skeleton said: "Since we are uniting the humans of immemorial black heaven, why don't we include white heaven as well? I will not hide it from you, I have contacted many people already, the response is quite good. Among them, there is one key person, we need your help to persuade them."
Granny Skeleton paused and continued: "This person is a rank eight Gu Immortal, he is known as Old Immortal Hua Yu, he controls Profound Literature grotto-heaven. He has quite the reputation in Eastern Sea's white heaven, if we can ally with this person, it will definitely bring along a number of white heaven Gu Immortals, we will save a lot of effort."
An Chong heard this and thought: Going to meet Old Immortal Hua Yu was not part of his mission, but if he could accomplish this feat, he would have a chance to compete with An Xun again.
Thinking of this, An Chong made his decision, saying to Granny Skeleton: "Since senior has already planned this, junior will set out for Profound Literature grotto-heaven."
Granny Skeleton praised: "Good, as expected of a member of Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven. Old Immortal Hua Yu does not like to fight or kill, that is why he has little interest in an alliance. If you can succeed in this trip, I will reward you greatly!"
An Chong left Shattered Bone grotto-heaven and went to immemorial white heaven, meeting with Old Immortal Hua Yu.
Even though Old Immortal Hua Yu had little interest in an alliance, An Chong was representing Lady Cold Ash in this trip. The other party was also a rank eight Gu Immortal, Old Immortal Hua Yu did not dare to ignore them, he opened the door and invited An Chong in.
After seeing Old Immortal Hua Yu, An Chong gave the speech that he thought up along the way but Old Immortal Hua Yu was unmoved.
"My Profound Literature grotto-heaven does not involve itself in worldly affairs, we are a neutral party. Even though we do not want to make an alliance, the two of us can still exchange resources."
Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven produced soul path resources, it was quite useful for Profound Literature grotto-heaven.
Seeing that he could not convince Old Immortal Hua Yu, An Chong thought that this transaction was at least better than nothing. This was the first time they were interacting, after several transactions, wouldn't they get closer?
With a deeper relationship, requesting for an alliance would be much better hopes.
After saying goodbye to Old Immortal Hua Yu, An Chong was asked to stay by another Gu Immortal.
Gu Immortal Hua Song attended to him, he said: "You have traveled a long journey to come here, you should stay for a few days. During this period, the mortal imperial court is holding a world poetry competition, many beautiful poems will be created and recited then, it is quite interesting to watch."
An Chong had already heard from Granny Skeleton about the poetry culture of Profound Literature grotto-heaven. All of their Gu Immortals were scholarly and preferred literature works over beautiful women or wine.
An Chong wanted to improve his relationship with Profound Literature grotto-heaven, even though he had no interest in poetry or recital, he could not refuse their kind invitation, he agreed to stay.
The world poetry competition commenced.
This was an unprecedented event, Profound Literature grotto-heaven had never held such a huge competition before. Thus, all sorts of talents gathered from all over Profound Literature grotto-heaven.
Other than the talented scholars who wanted to display their abilities in the poetry competition, many people came here to watch the grand event.
Thus, the capital city that was holding the world poetry competition became filled with people since a month ago.
People moved on the bustling streets, Li Xiao Bai and Teacher Jiang walked side by side.
"The world poetry competition has eighteen rounds, Xiao Bai, if you want to change your circumstances, this is the best chance. I understand your talent, you can pass the first ten rounds, but the latter eight will depend on your luck. Sigh, teacher cannot help you this time, we might even end up as opponents." Teacher Jiang sighed.
This was a grand event, Teacher Jiang also wanted to participate and compete with the other talented scholars!
After Li Xiao Bai heard this, he held down the urge to roll his eyes as he thought: "I am almost certain now that you will end up as my opponent, dear teacher."
Li Xiao Bai was Fang Yuan's clone, he was sent into Profound Literature grotto-heaven as a pawn to take over this grotto-heaven.
Initially, Li Xiao Bai had a smooth sailing journey, he even received the affection of Su clan's young miss, Su Qi Han. As a result, Li Xiao Bai became one of the ten great scholars, he had a chance to become Su clan's son-in-law.
Next, while Li Xiao Bai was on his way to the capital city, the world shook as mountains collapsed and rivers flooded. The people in Li Xiao Bai's group got injured while some died, they were trapped in the valley for months before Li Xiao Bai managed to escape for his life.
Because of this, he missed the opportunity and did not meet with the emperor. Without the emperor's decree, his ten great scholar title was conferred to others.
Li Xiao Bai wanted to contact Su Qi Han but found that after hearing about his situation, she went to look for him and went missing as a result, even now, she had not returned yet.
After arriving in the capital city, Li Xiao Bai encountered many setbacks, people tried to target him secretly, he offended officials or royalty without knowing it, he had a tough time. If not for Teacher Jiang's help, he would have ended up on the streets as a beggar.
But he knew why.
"Even though my main body destroyed fate Gu, our strong luck was almost completely expended in this battle. The result is that I as a clone also became really unlucky."
"This world poetry competition is the event created by Profound Literature grotto-heaven to choose new Gu Immortal seeds. Even though teacher does not know the details, he still chose to join, he is going to become my obstacle."
"I am so unlucky now, I will definitely face him. If I defeat him, this teacher might hate me for life. But this chance is too rare, if I do not use it to deal with the difficulties ahead, I will meet with more problems in the future!"