Edited by: VindiFan#1
An uneventful night.
The next day came.
Dawn.
A white crane with a red scruff flew from Bai Hua Palace, heading to far away.
The crane’s speed was exceptional, every time it flapped its wings, a transparent flame-like cloud appeared around its body.
Anyone who’s knowledgeable will know that this is the fastest of all flying mounts, the Flamecloud Chasing Sky Crane.
This type of crane doesn’t have excellent fighting power or defensive capabilities, its only specialty is speed.
Cultivators can also fly, but when they enter into long-term battle, they must have a mount.
Airships cost spirit stones, while spirit beasts don’t even consume any, in the worst situation, just giving them a Fasting Pill when they’re hungry is enough.
If cultivators were to fly by themselves they would have to waste spirit energy.
And on the battlefield, every little bit of spirit energy can be the difference between life and death.
Thus, the best choice is to use spirit beasts as a mount. Cultivators would not need to spend precious spirit energy or stamina while on the move, and they could even meditate and recover while on the mount.
Sitting on the white crane, Gu Qing Shan extends his sight far away.
Exiting Bai Hua Immortal country, they passed by Mountain Spirit Sect, Flowing Clouds Sect, West Mountain Sword Sect, and then into desolate land.
There were a lot of cities, fields, towns and villages on the way, but they all quickly passed with the crane’s speed.
Instead, what came into sight as a broad, barren country area.
A few of them were even abandoned.
Everyone there has been convinced to migrate further into the mainland, no matter if they were mortals or cultivators.
This area is already very close to the frontline.
Occasionally, there were groups of 3-5 formation users scattered across the land, setting up all sorts of formations.
This would be considered a buffer zone between the frontline and the mainland, if the frontline ever breaks, the formations set up here will be used for defensive and counter attacking purposes.
Flying for another hour or so, Gu Qing Shan finally saw the military outpost.
It’s called an outpost, but the area set up here is easily as big as a mid-sized city. The outer ring of the outpost was covered in a 10-meter radius dome-shaped defensive formation, occasionally there were cultivators on their spirit beasts, flying around patrolling.
A true military war fortress.
“We’re going down” he said.
“Right” Flamecloud Chasing Sky Crane answered.
It landed on an empty field right outside the outpost.
Gu Qing Shan took out a pill and gave it to the white crane, saying: “It’s been tough on you, come rest up first”
After eating the pill, it went back inside the spirit beast bag.
Gu Qing Shan quickly walked to the outpost gate.
“Who’s there?” the two guards shouted.
“Xiao Qi Chaplain, Gu Qing Shan, reporting for duty” Gu Qing Shan answered, then threw his badge over.
One of them took the badge, infusing it with spirit energy and the badge lit up.
A light floated from the badge, forming the characters “Xiao Qi Chaplain Gu Qing Shan”.
Scanning it, they found the badge was indeed linked with the young man standing before them, nodding.
Giving Gu Qing Shan back his badge, he said: “Come on in”
Gu Qing Shan replied: “Thank you”
In the outpost, everything was quite busy and rowdy.
“Who’s in charge of pills for Jia Zhi camp?”
“Where are the formation plates? Have the frontline formation users finished crafting the plates yet? We’re moving out tomorrow, why haven’t they delivered it yet?”
“Someone record this for me, the two camps at the West is under attack, I need to move out”
Many great cultivators were shouting, ordering around, their aides were running around unable to sit still for even a second.
Gu Qing Shan went into a queue, placing his badge on the table when it came his turn.
After the cultivator at the table put a spirit rune inside, he gave it back and said: “Next”
Gu Qing Shan quickly took the badge, following another person into a different building.
Looking at the nameplate, it saids: Quartermaster.
After going in, another cultivator took his badge.
He let out his inner sight and scanned the badge.
“A Xiao Qi Chaplain, you arrived at the right time”
Saying so, he turned around, walked into the storage room and took out a set of armor.
“Check it carefully, if there’s no problems then put your fingerprint here”
“Ah, ok, thank you”
Gu Qing Shan took the set of armor to another table, and carefully examined it.
It’s a black armor with red patterns, the red patterns on it were quite small and inscribed on hard-to-notice places. This would be the armor’s spirit energy circuit formation.
Breast plate, shoulder pads, helmet, wrist guard, gauntlet, belt, knee pads, marching shoes. All of them were brand new and of the highest quality.
This entire set of armor was all equipment at Spirit grade.
Equipment of all kinds made from smithing are categorized from lowest to highest as: Sharp, Treasure, Spirit, Law, Dao.
Spirit is only the middle rank, but it’s already extremely valuable, not to mention this was a full set of Spirit-grade armor.
Having this set of armor, he can be assured and just focus on killing demons without fear of demons whose expertise is sneak attacks, like the Heart-stealing Imp.
The golden set of armor that Ning Yue Xi wore before was a standard set of armor for Generals.
Wearing that, even if she only stood still for demons to attack, they wouldn’t even leave a scratch on it.
But that set of armor should be about peak Law-grade. The resources and time needed to craft it are extraordinary, so it’s very valuable.
Gu Qing Shan carefully checked everything and confirmed with his fingerprint.
Seeing him not complaining at all, finished checking and confirming so quickly, the other cultivator was quite glad.
Then he said: “Very good, now for your weapons”
Flipping through a list, he spoke: “Let me see, Xiao Qi Chaplain, hm, you can choose two weapons ——what weapon do you use?”
Gu Qing Shan thought for a bit, then replied: “I’ll use my own weapon, but can I exchange the two weapons for a few more Demon Slaying Arrows instead?”
“You don’t want the two weapons but want Demon Slaying Arrows?”
“Yes”
The other cultivator looked at him serious, then spoke: “At your rank of Xiao Qi Chaplain, you can only receive 1 Demon Slaying Arrow, but if you’ll give up the weapons, I can give you a total of 5 Demon Slaying Arrows instead”
“Yes please” Gu Qing Shan happily agreed.
The cultivator went deep inside the storage room. After a while, he returned, trying to best to carry five arrows.
Thunk!
As he put down the arrows, they made a dull sound.
The cultivator breathed heavily, saying: “These things are damn heavy, right, check them for yourself”
Gu Qing Shan took one and examined it.
The Demon Slaying Arrow let out a dark light, from one end to the other, it was inscribed with extremely intricate and small runes. The entire arrow was covered in runes without any blank space.
Demon Slaying Arrows are crafted from meteorites, its power is immense, but there’s very few of them, normally only used for important tactical-level campaigns, very rarely are they given to soldiers.
This is without a doubt life-saving equipment, so there can’t be any problems with it, Gu Qing Shan was examining every inch of it with utmost care.
After checking all five arrows, he clasped his hand at the cultivator, saying: “There are no problems, thank you very much”
“Come here, put your fingerprint on the weapons log as well”
“Yes”
After receiving his supplies, Gu Qing Shan went out and was guided to a certain building by another cultivator.
There were more than a dozen cultivators there, silently sitting and waiting for orders.
As the cultivator brought Gu Qing Shan to three other cultivators, he said: “You group here is complete, you can start preparing now, when you’re called, all of you will leave together”
Saying so, the cultivator left.
The other three people also carefully checked their belongings again, making sure they didn’t miss anything.
Gu Qing Shan went to one of the guards, asking and went to the tent where they deal with Military Merit.
A while later, he came back smiling.
A few great cultivators was told of his arrival by Ding Yuan General Gong Sun Zhi, so they have been waiting for him since morning.
As Gu Qing Shan gave them the list of demons, the great cultivators there all praised him highly.
This is a very good thing to have, it would definitely give them a huge advantage on the battlefield.
Gu Qing Shan received 100 Military Merit for this.
It takes 180 Military Merit to advance from “Xiao Qi” to “Zhen Wei”, so he’s already more than halfway there with this.
Thanks to that, the pressure from the Destiny Quest was eased somewhat.
When Gu Qing Shan came back, the other three had already donned their armor.
