“I should plant some flowers and herbs around the mansion.”
Back in his farm, Jiang He was sketching with pencil and paper.
“I should put a stone table and stone stools beneath the Elder Tea Tree of Enlightenment… hmmm, a normal stone table and stone stools would be a little degrading, so I should get something like the Eternal Jade of Warmth or the Eternal Jade of Frost. For cultivators, those aren’t exactly treasures, and when I’m done here, I could get Jin Sidao to send me a set.”
He then made of sketch of his idea on the paper.
It was only after he was finished sketching that he realized…
He could not even understand what he had drew.
“Hmmm…”
“It’s a little untidy… but whatever, I don’t know a thing about designing anyway. I could just get Big Onion Bro when I need him and have him help me with the design,” Jiang He said as he crumpled the paper and threw it away.
He then turned toward the many spirit stones trees, which were dangling with thumb-sized spirit stones, which would be ripe in around an hour.
‘Another four or five batches and the spirit stones would all be planted. Everything would be settled including the 1,000 initiation pellets and I could level up the farm afterwards,’ Jiang He thought, and left his farm.
As he stood in his yard, he lit himself a cigarette and looked up at the skies towards the Stargate, his face twitching when he did so.
“Isn’t the Stargate… getting wider?” he exclaimed in surprise.
Jiang He had not really been keeping an eye on the Stargate over the last half month and now that he looked closer, he noticed that the Stargate actually was much wider now, its diameter having widened to 15 meters.
Still, since the Stargate was just around ten thousand meters up in the air, Jiang He’s divine mind could easily reach it.
As he scanned it with his divine mind, he noticed that the entire passage was much stabler than before. While only full-fledged Yuan Spirits could pass it before, it could now accommodate Convergence individuals.
“Hold on…”
“Only Convergence individuals?”
Jiang He could not help scowling at that thought and swore under his breath….
Damn it!
He had been too preoccupied with improving his cultivation before to fight the immortal sects, demonic sects, and daemon cultivators. Now that he ended up becoming a full-fledged Mahayana, he would cause the Stargate to crumble by just entering it—spatial storms and dimensional rifts or whatnot would definitely kill him when that happened.
“And I even talked about making time to visit the Sky Demons… How would I get to them now?”
“Should I hide inside my farm while Dumbo carries the farm, allowing it to bring me over?”
“No, that’s not safe… A full-fledged Mahayana could journey across the stars physically without problems. Why don’t I just walk up to the Sky Demons instead?”
Still, there was another problem.
The universe was vast.
While flight speed would increase considerably since there was no gravity in space, distances between cosmic bodies were counted in light years—so what if he could fly at twenty times the speed of sound?
“Right, my top speed is around twenty to twenty-five times the speed of sound. In space where there is no gravity, I could fly up to fifty times the speed of sound….”
Still, he would cover less than twenty kilometers in a single second even if he traveled at fifty times the speed of sound.
“In other words, it would take me five to six hours if I journeyed physically to the moon, or half a year to Mars.”
Jiang He gave up on his idea after a little calculation.
Would he not be feeling lonely and isolated, flying half a year in the infinity that was space?
Of course, there were also things like super-long distance warp portals when it comes to space travelling, and a lot of problems would be spared if there was one. But the problem here was where on earth would he get something like that?
“That is why there are three ways to handle the Sky Demons right now.”
“First, become immortal—my flight speed would greatly increase, and should I be able to grasp Dao and control spatiality then, is there a place I can’t go even with the vastness of space?”
“Secondly, I could acquire an immortal item that manipulates space and use it to travel.”
“Thirdly, wait for them to come over.”
In truth, Jiang He would not actually mention ideas like waiting for an opponent to come to him because that was too passive.
“Hmm… actually, there is a fourth solution.”
“If the Sky Demons can stabilize the Stargate, I should be able to do that too… I could travel through it once the Stargate stabilizes to some extent, though I’m not familiar with that stuff and I have no idea how I should stabilize the Stargate.”
That was when Jiang He’s phone rang.
And once he answered, he heard a rather familiar voice.
“Greetings, Mister Jiang. I’m from the military; my name is Li Jianguo.”
“Li Jianguo?”
Jiang He did a double take, but soon remembered and laughed, “Chief Commander Li, yes? What is the matter?”
On the other end of the call, Chief Commander Li did not waste his breath and cut to the chase. “Jiang He, did your pets go to Mount Putuo?”
“Oh, yes.”
Jiang He answered honestly. “Aren’t we a little free lately? I was going to landscape my house for a bit, and since I heard that the purple bamboo forest of Mount Putuo is an incredible scenery, I was thinking about moving them to my house.”
Chief Commander Li said nothing for a long while.
How…
Whimsical!
You are cutting down the purple bamboo forest in Mount Putuo and moving it to your house just because the scenery is nice?
Does that mean you would pluck the stars from the skies and put them in your house if you find them pretty?
He searched his words for a moment before saying, “Well, the thing is, there has been a string of unusual phenomena occurring at Mount Putuo lately…”
He then spoke of what happened, and Jiang He could not help laughing when the chief commander mentioned how Dumbo barked “I’m Jiang He’s dog! Who dares touch me!?”
“That dog has learned how to use the influence of others, huh?” He said.
Chief Commander Li then added, “Afterwards, the phenomena on Mount Putuo disappeared since the elites there had stopped clashing. I’ve sent someone to investigate too, but it seems an invisible barrier had appeared ten kilometers out of Mount Putuo, and there was no getting past it.”
“Oh?”
Jiang He’s gaze changed as he repeated, “An array?”
“We can’t determine what is going on at Mount Putuo, and out of concern for your pets and disciples, we’ve given you a call,” Chief Commander Li said, and soon hung up.
Meanwhile, Jiang He appeared thoutghtful.
Mount Putuo?
Unusual phenomenon?
Arrays?
Could Mount Putuo be an immortal sect as well?
“No, if there was a sect on Mount Putuo, it would be a Buddha sect and not an immortal sect.” Jiang He suddenly remembered… the purple bamboo forest of Mount Putuo did sound a little familiar!
“The Purple Bamboo Forest of the Southern Seas, wasn’t it?”
“Guanyin’s Bodhimanda?”
Whoosh!
Jiang He stood up and called in Sora, instructing her, “Wrap some dumplings for tonight. Wasn’t the mutated wheat we planted last time processed into flour? I haven’t eaten that yet, so let’s have some of that to keep things fresh.”
“By the way, add in some potato and beef filling. We still have that, right? I remember killing an old rank-eight ox which meat was quite good… As for potatoes, you could get it from the market.”
Still, Jiang He was a little speechless upon the mention of potatoes.
He had not eaten any potatoes for three months.
But there was no helping it…
How was he supposed to eat it when all he got from planting were potato landmines?
***
Meanwhile, atop Mount Putuo, south of Qiantang river delta, in the southeastern isles of Zhoushan, oceanic winds were gusting and there was a melodious rustling of bamboo leaves at the bamboo forest with a purple hue.
Many elites were gathered there.
Most of them were Sufferance-tier, the weakest of whom were three or four retributions, while the stronger ones were seven or eight. They were all cultivators from major immortal sects, demonic sects, and daemon cultivators, having been split into groups of seven or eight.
Of course, the most eye-catching group was still Dumbo and the others.
After all, they consisted of a cat, a dog, two eagles, and Seven Bottle Gourd Brothers.
Dumbo was the strongest among them but though his auras could match Feral Emperors or True Childs, he was not an actual Feral Emperor. It was no exaggeration that the elites could kill them with a mere breath.
Even so, Dumbo was being absolutely pompous.
Standing on its rear legs, it was chewing on a cigar while wearing sunglasses…
Though the cigar heated its throat, the thing was thicker and larger, which makes smoking it a little imposing.
It took two puffs before looking around at the others and sneering. “Not leaving, people? Or am I going to have you escort you away?”
There was silence in the purple bamboo forest.
After a long while, a six-retribution cultivator said, “Mount Putuo is said to be Guanyin’s Bodhimanda. Everyone has the right to claim the legacy she left.”
That six-retribution cultivator was wearing a blood-colored robe.
His very aura contains the scent of blood and killing intent—he was obviously a cultivator from a demonic sect.
Nonetheless, Dumbo turned towards him and coolly said, “What is your name and what is your Sect? What is your cultivation, and what did you just say? Do repeat yourself if you have what it takes.”
The six-retribution cultivator was gritting his teeth in frustration, his face flushing crimson. If a cultivator from another immortal sect had said that, he would have gone amok and fought with his life.
This dog, however…
He genuinely would not dare to provoke it.
One must know the owner even if they hit a dog, and this dog’s owner was Jiang He!
Jiang He, who would murder and wipe out entire sects if one word rubbed him the wrong way!
However, while Dumbo appeared absolutely pompous, the dog was so frightened inwardly it could wet itself.
Damn it!
Why were there so many elites?
It was so frightening… but it wouldn’t do if he didn’t act pompous.
A single stray bolt from these morons’ battles before almost killed it. That was why it had to mention Jiang He’s name… to an unexpected effect.
The dog became confident all at once.
The way he could scold these elites without holding back could not be more delightful, even if they were endlessly more powerful than himself.
At that thought, it snuffed out its cigar and stood up again, then strode toward the misty Bodhimanda with the air of absolute cockiness, saying, “That Bodhimanda and everything inside belongs to my master. Who has anything to say about that?”
“Bottle Gourd Brothers, bigger eagle, smaller eagle—you guys get in first. Trumbo and I will stand guard here. I do want to see who would dare to offend our master!”
Soon, the Seven Bottle Gourd Brothers and the two eagles had entered the Bodhimanda shrouded in a misty Buddhist glow. The other elites looked at each other then, with one four-retribution cultivator saying meekly, “But… I was the first to discover the Bodhimanda on Mount Putuo.”
Dumbo was dumbstruck.
