“Run, quickly!” The remaining members shouted in panic.
It was easy to kill them but Qin Feng decided to spare their lives.
“Bai Li, can you keep watch for me?” Qin Feng yelled.
“Don’t worry. I will keep you safe!” Bai Li immediately deserted Quong Ting and went to Qin Feng’s side.
“Thanks!” Qin Feng replied and sat down on the ground. He felt safe with Bai Li guarding him.
With his eyes closed, Qin Feng looked into himself and examined his dantian. Ample energy pools could be seen expanding steadily but there was a spot that appeared to be in dissonance. Those came from the energy Qin Feng had just absorbed from the ancient warriors of the Shinla Devils.
“Ability, absorb.”
The internal force began to orbit and strengthen his meridian. Reconcentrated internal strength flowed through his consciousness realm and was then recycled back into his dantian, forming one pool after another.
In the blink of an eye, ten more pools had appeared in there.
Qin Feng had managed to amass a total of 997 pools of internal force now. The force was still being pumped into the dantian and yet another two pools had materialized. His dantian was bloated with force.
‘Merge!’
Qin Feng activated Asteroid Assimilation, which formed a whirlpool at the center of his dantian.
The energy ponds were pulled in by it and merged with each other.
Ten ponds would be enough to form a lake-size force reservoir. Qin Feng’s internal strength evolved in no time.
The primary lake formed effortlessly, which meant that Qin Feng had officially stepped into the B-tier realm.
After the first lake had formed, the remaining ponds merged quickly too. But Qin Feng’s internal strength was simply too vast. It would take some time to convert all of them.
At the moment, most of the Blight Butterflies had been taken down by the aptitude users. They were all now heading Quong Po’s way.
A grimace appeared on Diran’s face. His comrades had already told him about the current development through consciousness transmission.
This mission was a total failure. They had suffered a great loss.
“Damn it!” Diran was livid. Ever since he became a top-tier prodigy and spent the past ten years climbing through the ranks, Diran had never experienced such a fiasco. This greatly irked him.
“I have underestimated you!” Diran said sarcastically. He evaded Quong Po’s attack and sank rapidly.
He was trying to flee by blending into the ground.
“Mr. Quong, you wouldn’t be so lucky next time. We will meet again.”
Though he might not get another chance after today, Diran still wanted to provoke Quong Po one last time.
Quong Po was indeed enraged. Diran was only a D5-tier aptitude user yet Quong Po was always a step slower in their battle.
Diran’s final insult only added salt to his wound.
However, seeing that others had begun to gather behind him, Quong Po could only keep quiet to preserve his pride. He watched on helplessly as Diran disappeared into the ground.
“Master Quong, are you alright?”
Everyone was looking at him. Though he was in a bad spot, Quong Po was barely hurt. He waved his hand and said, “I’m fine. Any casualties on our side?”
A water-type ability user stepped forward and said solemnly, “We lost three aptitude users. Some of us are hurt but we are good otherwise.”
Quong Po, though a little upset, was relieved that the loss was rather minimal.
“It’s my fault for being careless. For the deceased, I will take care of their funerals and widows. Others will get their respective reward as promised too.”
“Master Quong, we knew the risk when we accepted the mission. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You should go and look for Miss Quong. She is in safe hands now!” Jiang Po stepped forward and said courteously as if he was the one who had saved Quong Ting.
“Alright!”
Quong Po paced toward Qin Feng’s direction anxiously. Quong Ting had regained herself by now. She was looking curiously at Bai Li, then at Qin Feng who was meditating inside the bushes.
“Ting!”
“Dad!” Quong Ting’s eyes reddened and she dashed right into her father’s arm.
Quong Po took a closer look at her. Quong Ting seemed fine except she was now covered in a large coat that clearly did not belong to her. He did not say anything and looked at her daughter sympathetically.
Quong Po then turned to the other two persons nearby.
Bai Li was currently checking the spatial equipment left behind by the dead Shinla members. There were perhaps some valuables left inside.
She immediately sensed Quong Po’s sight.
“I owe you two a big thanks!” Quong Po gazed at Bai Li and was puzzled to find that she was only a C-tier. After all, he had witnessed first-hand how prominent this young lady was on the battlefield.
But then he thought about Diran and figured perhaps this beautiful lady was just another youngster with otherworldly talent.
“You are welcome. We are just doing our part. This is a mission, after all,” Bai Li answered calmly.
“Good. You will get the pay you deserve for saving my daughter.” He obviously intended to reward them more than he had previously promised. However, Bai Li did not really care about it and nodded inattentively.
Quong Po then turned to Qin Feng.
“This young man…” Quong Po could sense the fluctuating energy inside Qin Feng and he was stunned. The young man who was only a C-tier ability user not long ago had now owned the aura equivalent to a B-tier! How was that possible?
Nonetheless, the fluctuation appeared only for a brief instant and disappeared quickly. Quong Po was puzzled and wondered whether he had sensed it wrongly.
Obviously, it was Qin Feng’s dark ability that had automatically concealed his true aura.
“My hubby is breaking through into the next stage. You all can leave first. We can get out of here by ourselves later.” Bai Li said as she kept thinking about the Blight Butterfly cores inside their nest.
She was never wasteful no matter how tiny the power source was. There was still A-tier to achieve after B-tier. If they could not find a better power core then, these butterfly cores would do just fine.
“Dad, we should wait for them since they are my savior,” Quong Ting pleaded. She was very grateful to the two who had freed her from the villains’ hands.
“Yes, Master Quong. We should leave together like how we had come together.”
“That’s right. It’s rude to leave them behind after all that they had done for us.”
Many echoed the decision to stay and wait. On a closer look, most who had spoken up were gunners.
They were all enthralled by the blaster used by Qin Feng to attack the Shinla Devils. They wished to ask Qin Feng where to get it when Qin Feng had woken up.
Gunners usually designed their own weapons even after they had reached C-tier. Though the chance of Qin Feng selling his blaster was slim, they still wanted to give it a shot.
After all, Qin Feng was concurrently a decent ability user as well as an ancient warrior. He should give other gunners a chance.
While everyone waited anxiously, Qin Feng remained unmoved and finally opened his eyes half an hour later.
The ponds inside his dantian had been replaced by a denser lake. The size of the lake was ninety times larger than that of a normal B-tier ability user.
This lake gave Qin Feng the modal to gain newer heights.
