After chatting with Old Han, he gave Chu Mu a complete map.
This map seemed to lay out the entirety of Eastern Wild Forest’s terrain. It even contained markings for creatures. Chu Mu could follow this map to train on a grade basis.
Dead Dream’s strength increased very quickly. Practically every month they would have to change locations. Moreover, they often couldn’t find suitable opponents. Searching like this wasted a lot of time, so such a detailed map would save Chu Mu a lot of time. Moreover, the old man had used his many years of experience to outline a number of spirit items that could accelerate soul pet growth to Chu Mu which he could feed the Dead dream. This way, he would be able to accelerate its development.
Chu Mu who was used to frequently undergo harsh training and long periods of training alone, felt that there was nothing difficult to bear. Moreover, each time he saw the Dead Dream’s strength rise, Chu Mu felt a sense of accomplishment.
There was also something else worth being happy over.
Chu Mu had placed a total of 40 Life Fruits in his spatial ring. Mu Qingyi had taken ten and Ye Qingzi had used ten to concoct spirit items. The remaining twenty were left in his spatial ring and ultimately, the energy inside was all absorbed to replenish the xuan root without much xuan energy left.
This meant that Chu Mu now had a wood type xuan item. According to Chu Mu’s estimations, the xuan item with recovered xuan energy would probably be able to create a wood type dominator creature.
Thus, aside from training the Dead Dream, Chu Mu also trained the Devil Tree Battle Soldier. He would first raise its power to the paragon emperor rank before attempting to strengthen it to the dominator rank!
Chu Mu had witnessed the power of a wood type dominator rank creature. The Ten Thousand Eyed Treant’s roots that covered 100 kilometers still made Chu Mu’s heart palpitate. Especially since wood types countered demon world creatures, this would truly be very effective. If the Devil Tree Battle Soldier could enter the dominator rank, it would be extremely useful in a group fight.
……
It was an age of war. Turmoil and chaos. Each city had exceptionally tight defenses.
The season of snow had once again descended on Wanxiang Realm. In the frigid winter, the fights became even more frequent. The vagrant soul pet trainers that wanted to find a place to rest each time the reached a city would discover that the city walls, both inside and out, were being defended heavily by soldiers. Moreover, flags of war were hung on the outside. They would have no choice but to shake their heads and sigh before making a detour around this city to continue their excursion.
“How many cities are still peaceful in Wanxiang realm…” on the snowy ground, a vagrant man spoke with resentment.
There were also three men and one woman with this vagrant man. They were probably similar to an adventure group from some city that travelled to different cities and bewildering worlds.
During peaceful times, these types of adventuring teams constituted the majority of travelling soul pet trainers. Most of them had ties to Hunting Alliance and would often take a mission before traveling to a city and collecting the reward at the next city after finishing the mission.
This vagrant lifestyle was something that many soul pet trainers with not shackles on their hearts looked for. Travelling, fighting, taking risks, fortuitous encounters… finally, they would have a chance encounter in some city and settle down there, or perhaps they would become genuinely exhausted and choose to return to their hometown.
Unfortunately, in times of war, such adventure teams were difficult to construct. On the one hand, the various cities were in chaos, putting them in danger. On the other hand, practically all soul pet trainers were relying on a faction. The emergence of a war would cause their standpoint to become sensitive. They would no longer be as free as they were in the past and those genuinely free vagrants would often be rejected or looked upon with suspicion…
“Let’s go. We’ll head in the direction of Snow City. Snow City is rather stable right now. There won’t be a fight that breaks out for the time being.” said the team leader.
The team leader was the only woman in the team of five. She was a close-combat type soul pet trainer, and a very swift and decisive woman. The team members would occasionally tease or flirt with her. However, often this would result in them asking for trouble.
Since the female team leader had chosen Snow City, the team members couldn’t really say anything. Indeed, they didn’t know which city to go to.
After traveling ten days, they finally neared Snow City.
“Snow City is the most beautiful city I have seen. It is covered by snow all four months of the year without the slightest blemish. It’s exactly like a dream…” the middle aged man recalled the scenery from the last time he came to Snow City. He spoke with emotion.
“Really? I remember the first time I came to Snow City, I encountered a man from the three great palaces inside a wine shop. He told me that Snow city was a linkage point in the war in Tianxia Realm and Wanxiang Realm. This city was extremely important because if their three great palaces lost the war, they would be able to use Snow City as a transfer point to return back and defend Tianxia Realm. This would cause the two realms to face off against one another. Moreover, Tianxia Realm would be able to continuously pour fresh blood into Wanxiang Realm’s battlefield through there…” said the female team leader.
“From the way things appear, it should be like this. I wonder which of the two great factions will win.”
At this point, all of them began to urge their soul petse to run down the snow slope.
“That’s strange, Snow City should be here. Why can’t I see it?” muttered the man who had come to Snow City before.
“You guys… you guys quickly look ahead!” suddenly, one of the members cried out.
The others immediately used soul remembrance to scan the hazy plains of flying snow ahead.
However, what entered their eyes was not a serene and quietly beautiful city, but instead an enormous ice flower forest filled with countless plants!!
Countless flower demons covered the city. Plant roots, branches, vines and tendrils passed through, and winded around the city walls and buildings. It looked as if an enormous plant soul pet was lying on the city!
The five adventurers were stunned by this. One month ago, they had obtained information from another city that Snow City was abnormally quiet and there were no signs of war. However, for some reason the city had now been engulfed by countless flower demons. In the pocket of wind, they could hear screams and sounds of slaughter in the distance!
“What… what happened. Why did so many flower demons appear?” the female team leader stared at the city in the distance and a feeling of terror passed through her whole body.
The other members couldn’t say anything as they had never seen such a shocking scene before!
“Soul Alliance probably launched a hidden attack on Snow City!!”
Yet, when did Soul Alliance possess such an enormous flower demon army? Could it have been Flower Empress Master Xia Zhixian’s power? But wasn’t she right now in Wanxiang City which was in the distant east?
“We had better quickly leave this place!” the team leader lost the courage to continue forwards.
……
Wanxiang City, Soul Palace’s great hall.
After the news of Snow City falling in a single night reached the three great palace’s higher ups, all of the elders and senior elders were stunned.
From the previous fight against Soul Alliance in Snow City, they obtained absolute control over the city. Moreover, the surrounding tens of kingdoms around the city had no Soul Alliance influence. As a city, its defense was extremely tight.
However, in a mere single night, Snow City had completely lost connection with other cities!
Snow City was extremely important to the three great palaces. Now that it had mysteriously been taken over by Soul Alliance, this was undoubtedly a huge blow to them!
“What on earth happened? How were so many cities taken over by our enemies in such a short period of time?!!” Great Senior Elder Chao was fuming.
Previously, those ninth rank kingdom cities had mysteriously been lost. That was fine. But this time, they had lost a tenth rank kingdom city. Moreover, Snow City was their transfer city. Now that it was occupied by Soul Alliance, this meant that they had no path to retreat!
“Everybody stay calm. I’ve already sent people to gather intelligence. Although the loss of these cities can damage our courage, the advantage is still with us. We’ll continue as we have previously decided.” said Diagram Supreme Ke Yin.
The senior elders and elders all realized that they couldn’t do anything about it and could only do their own matters.
After everyone broke up, there were a few Soul Palace people left in the great hall.
Ke Yin stared at Female Supreme Liu Binglan who hadn’t said anything in the meeting. After hesitating, he asked: “Did you think of something?”
“Yes. This method is similar to how Tianxia City was nearly destroyed. It was completely without warning and the plan was extremely careful and fast. It caught everyone off guard and when we were completely defenseless, we had already sunk into an irreversible situation.” said Liu Binglan.
“You’re saying that the strategist who has caused numerous important cities to instantly fall is likely to be the same person as the plotter of the Tianxia City event?” asked Diagram Supreme Ke Yin.
Liu BInglan nodded her head. This was just her intuition.
However, Liu Binglan believed that the person who was able to design the Tianxia City plot would definitely not disappear without a trace. The present strange fall of these cities could very well be an omen of the plotter taking action.
“Your Majesty Female Supreme, the fall of these cities wasn’t actually without warning. Previously, I felt that these fallen cities were all in a period of peace. If I were Soul Alliance’s general, I would definitely try and take down these cities through any possible means… If they could do it without a word or movement, this means that they already had something deployed there. Moreover, the designer of the Tianxia City plot, if I’m not wrong, is the Empress Concubine.” said Old Li.
“This woman did a very good job of pretending. There will be a day when we rip off her facade.” harrumphed Diagram Supreme Ke Yin.
“Yes, she has hidden herself too deeply.” Liu Binglan nodded her head and pensively spoke.