Before much more time passed, Granny Chan took her leave. She needed to properly consider her relationship with this young man.
Lu Yin didn’t mind that she had left. He’d already killed Lei Long, and with the Nalan family’s financial support, he should now have enough money to upgrade his gun to the point where it could threaten a powerhouse with a power level of 300,000. With that amount of power, it wouldn’t even matter if Granny Chan opposed him. Besides, she probably wouldn’t simply ignore him. All Enlighters were very intelligent.
On the meteorite that had once been the Nine Stacks Sect’s headquarters, there weren’t actually many people from the Dire Barbarian Clan. Most of the people still there had been members of the Nine Stacks Sect who surrendered to the Dire Barbarian Clan. Such actions should be punished, but Lu Yin decided to let them off. Compared to the loyal cultivators from the Nine Stacks Sect, these traitors were more useful to him. It wasn’t as if he was actually going to rebuild the Nine Stacks Sect; everything was merely being done in name. Lu Yin intended for the Nine Stacks Sect to disappear at this very moment and leave its old name behind.
Tianming, Lan Wu, and Kayze stood before Lu Yin.
Lu Yin told Tianming, “From today onwards, you will be the master of the Nine Stacks Sect.”
Tianming was shocked. “I’d prefer to return to the Great Yu Empire, Your Highness.”
Lu Yin chuckled. “Stay in Grandtop Weave for a while. After things stabilize, I’ll let you come back.”
Tianming nodded.
Lu Yin then glanced over at Lan Wu. “Why are you willing to join me?
Lan Wu respectfully answered, “I want to survive.”
Lu Yin nodded and praised her, “You’re smart. Stay here and help Tianming stabilize the sect. When I restructure the Thirteen Imperial Squadrons in the future, you’ll have the opportunity to become one of the captains.”
Lan Wu was delighted. “Thank you very much, Your Highness.”
Lu Yin knew that the Hunter was acting. Rather than being a captain of the Thirteen Imperial Squadrons, she would much rather be free to move about Grandtop Weave after being conferred a title to her. However, Lu Yin could remove anyone from their position at the moment, so this was the best that he could do. However, there would be changes coming soon enough. At that time, this woman would be called back to the Great Yu Empire.
He let Tianming and Lan Wu leave after tasking them with the goal of rebuilding the Nine Stacks Sect. He then shifted his focus over to Kayze.
The Explorer hung his head. The Dire Barbarian Clan had been completely annihilated with him as the sole survivor. The person who had committed this slaughter was standing right in front of him. This person had even managed to kill an Enlighter.
Kayze had no intentions of attempting to take revenge, as that was simply unfeasible. At this time, all he wanted to do was survive.
“I heard that you have a very interesting innate gift,” Lu Yin said curiously.
Kayze quickly answered, “Yes, my gift allows me to judge a person’s strength based on the sounds I hear.”
Lu Yin was surprised. “So you were able to hear mine back then?”
Kayze nodded.
Lu Yin carefully observed Kayze. This person seemed useful, but Lu Yin had no idea how to make use of him. In addition, Lu Yin did not know what he could do to make Kayze willingly join his side, so Lu Yin was at a loss. The Dire Barbarian Clan was full of people with terrible characters, and that was a huge problem.
“Seventh Bro, there’s a method from the Innerverse’s Beast Tamers Flowzone that makes it impossible for former enemies to betray you. One only needs to brand a tamed beast onto your enemy. So long as the tamed beast can be trusted to remain loyal to you, the beast can be used as a powerful tool to keep an eye on someone.” The Ghost Monkey suddenly offered some information.
“Some technologically-advanced areas also have certain items that can be placed onto their enemies to ensure loyalty. I’ve met people like that at the border warfront, and while their situation is very tragic, such methods can be useful.”
Lu Yin remained deep in thought.
Kayze anxiously waited. Before too much longer, Lu Yin finally decided to let him enter the First Imperial Squadron as a temporary measure. He was going to transform that particular squadron into his personal guards.
Lei Long’s death shocked the nearby weaves. After the Innerverse and Outerverse had been separated from each other, Lei Long was the second Enlighter to die. The first, Karthika, had also died at Lu Yin’s hand. The fact that two Enlighters had been killed by the same Limiteer sent chills running down the spines of the other Enlighters in the Outerverse. They had no choice but to admit that Lu Yin had the ability to kill Enlighters within seconds.
For this reason, Lu Yin received a new nickname: Enlighters’ Bane.
When Lu Yin learned of this nickname, he was left momentarily speechless. After receiving such a title, it would no longer be possible for him to ambush Enlighters, and they might not even have the guts to receive his gifts.
Thankfully, nobody knew exactly how Lu Yin had managed to kill Karthika and Lei Long. Even Granny Chan, who’d seen the entire ordeal with Lie Long from start to finish, wasn’t certain. She knew about the gun, but not about Progenitor Wushang’s hide, and she hadn’t inquired any deeper.
Back on Zenyu Star, Lu Yin went straight to King Zishan’s palace, and once he arrived, he used Lei Long’s blood to unlock the Enlighter’s cosmic ring. He was immediately delighted; there was some good stuff inside!
The Enlighters stuck in the Outerverse were all incredibly afraid that they would not be able to get enough resources and that they would enter their period of weakness. Thus, everything that they owned would be stored in their cosmic rings. Lei Long had possessed nearly 20,000 star essence, which was 10,000 fewer than Karthika. There were also hundreds of thousands of star crystals.
But this sum left Lu Yin rather disappointed. The amount was rather pitiful, but it also showed that the Dire Barbarian Clan wasn’t as wealthy as the Second Grade Hall. Lei Long obviously hadn’t obtained many star essence from the Nine Stacks Sect either.
But that didn’t make sense. The Nine Stacks Sect shouldn’t be that poor.
Lu Yin immediately contacted Tianming and asked him about the sect’s financial situation. Lan Wu was the one who answered, and she explained that most of their resources had been employed to keep the sect operating. Their treasury did not have many star essence to begin with, but they did have billions of star crystals.
Those star crystals were still at the Nine Stacks Sect’s headquarters.
Lu Yin was speechless. He had totally forgotten to use his domain to investigate that place! Of course Lei Long’s cosmic ring wouldn’t have been able to hold that many star crystals.
Billions of star crystals was comparable to tens of thousands of star essence, which was quite a terrifying amount.
However, that amount of star crystals was not convenient at all. The light screen that appeared when Lu Yin rolled Enhance wasn’t very large, which meant there was a limit to how many star essence he could place on it at a time. If he used star crystals instead, then his arms would likely become sore long before he could complete even a single upgrade. Star essence were necessary.
The star crystals were unusable for Lu Yin, but the Nine Stacks Sect wouldn’t be able to get off of the hook that easily. Lu Yin immediately instructed Lan Wu to send the star crystals over to Zenyu Star so that they could restore the Great Yu Empire’s imperial treasury.
As for Grandtop Weave… It would be restored some later time in the future!
Aside from the money, there were quite a few other things in Lei Long’s cosmic ring. Like Karthika’s, there were quite a few medications. However, Lu Yin also found a unique valuable item in the ring. It was protected within a layer of Spiritual Thread, which could one mean thing: it was a sourcebox.
What a surprise.
Lu Yin eyed the square box that was several meters long and made entirely out of Spiritual Thread. He considered his options for a moment, put on his universal armor, and then slowly opened the box. All of a sudden, an invisible force flitted past the armor and pierced straight through the building and the void. Many people outside of the palace watched on in shock as a huge crack extended into space before slowly dissipating.
Lu Yin immediately closed the box, completely shocked. He touched the area on his armor that had come in contact with the invisible force and saw a white mark there. The invisible bloodlust that had seeped out of the sourcebox had actually damaged this universal armor which was sturdy enough to withstand an Enlighter’s attacks.
Lu Yin immediately put the box away. At the same moment, Bronsen charged in from outside the palace before he was stopped by Lu Yin.
While touching the box, Lu Yin thought to himself, That invisible bloodlust was able to damage my armor, so it’s probably a Boundless Advanced sourcebox. It might even contain the power of the predecessors inside of it.
This was not something Lu Yin could handle at his current level.
Lu Yin moved on from the box and started to check out the other items inside Lei Long’s cosmic ring.
Frostwave Weave was close to the Outerverse’s region of the Astral Wilderness. To the south of Frostwave Weave lay Darkmist Weave, and to the north was Northcastle Weave. To the east was Grandtop Weave, and to the west lay Lars Weave. There were also small sections of the border that connected to Woori Weave.
The moment news of Lei Long’s death spread to the nearby weaves, the organizations from the Blaze Realm that had been occupying Lars Weave immediately moved out. The forces from the Second Divine Hall that had been staying in Northcastle Weave also changed their base.
All of the Enlighters who were in the weaves bordering Frostwave Weave felt a chill that went straight to their bones.
Huo Houye in particular had the feeling that Lu Yin would seek him out, looking for trouble. Since Lu Yin was so thirsty for blood, and Huo Houye was completely in the dark about the brat’s abilities, the Enlighter did not dare to go up against Lu Yin.
The stranded Enlighters could not be blamed for acting so cowardly. Anyone who was able to reach the Enlighter realm was a genius, and they all had all sorts of tricks to stay alive. It wasn’t easy to kill such people, and it was very rare for anyone to die even during battles between Enlighters. However, despite that, Lu Yin had eliminated two of them in quick succession. The remaining Enlighters felt incredibly uncomfortable after seeing this turn of events, and they felt as if everything they knew was a lie.
Even Enlighters like Nightqueen Qiuyu, Elder Viletree, and Wen Qichen from the major forces of the Innerverse were shocked. All of them were suddenly unwilling to have anything to do with Frostwave Weave unless it was absolutely necessary.
Now that Lu Yin had handed the Nine Stacks Sect over to Tianming, Frostwave Weave and Grandtop Weave had essentially merged together, and the empire’s territory had suddenly expanded to twice its original size. While Lu Yin hadn’t gained complete control over the entire area, it was bound to happen sooner or later. However, at the moment, the lack of qualified personnel was becoming more and more glaring of a problem.
The military was dreadfully short of both manpower and qualified powerhouses. All of these problems were starting to give Lu Yin a huge headache.
He’d already passed off most of the document reviewing work that the Imperial Cabinet needed to be done to the Lu Administrative Cabinet’s Huan Sha. However, even with her talent, there was too much work for just one person to complete. Most of the papers still had to be delivered to King Zishan’s palace.
Lu Yin wanted them to be delivered to Wendy Yushan’s residence, but her residence wasn’t even open, and no ministers were able to enter. He was at a complete loss for what to do.
Half a month passed in such a manner until Lu Yin really couldn’t handle it anymore. He wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed administrative work. Thankfully, he was suddenly told that Madam Nalan was requesting an audience with him.
Lu Yin’s eyes lit up. Right, Madam Nalan! How could he have forgotten about her? The Nalan family was one of the wealthiest organizations in the entire Outerverse, and their business interests reached all seventy two weaves. They wielded way more influence than the Great Yu Empire, and they had far more complicated issues that they needed to handle on a daily basis. Madam Nalan was sure to have a method to deal with this.
Soon enough, she entered King Zishan’s palace.
The moment he saw Madam Nalan, Lu Yin stopped breathing for a moment. He was once again shocked by this woman’s appearance. She was always able to catch him off guard with her natural beauty and arousing fragrance. With those tight, pure white clothes, pale legs, and red fingernails, she was simply breathtaking.
Lu Yin had a certain level of resistance to lust since he had been around so many beauties in his life. There was his beloved Ming Yan, Bai Xue, Starsibyl, Wendy Yushan, and many more. Each and every one of them was absolutely stunning. However, Lu Yin’s resistance towards Madam Nalan quickly disappeared each time they met because she was simply far too seductive. More importantly, she wasn’t doing anything on purpose.
Lu Yin really could not imagine what it would be like if she actually tried to seduce him. He fully believed that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
She studied him, and her eyes formed little half moons as she smiled. “You’re making me feel unnerved when you stare at me in such a manner, Your Highness.”
Lu Yin immediately looked away and apologized. “Forgive me, madam, as I was distracted.”
Madam Nalan smiled. She’d seen far too many gazes of infatuation directed towards her, so she was not surprised at all. Regardless of how much of a genius or how invincible Lu Yin may be, he was still a man, as well as a man who was very well-spirited. “What are you agonizing over, Your Highness? Tell me. If it’s possible for us to help, we won’t say no.”
