Chapter 154 Counterattack on District 21
Let Xiong Dabao handle the subsequent internal affairs of the faction, while he went downstairs with Dorun to discuss the recruitment requirements.
Lu Sheng's requirements were very simple, boiling down to a single condition: anyone capable and willing to work should be recruited. The exact number of people did not matter; he would take as many as came.
Lu Sheng also explicitly told Dorun that his purpose in establishing this faction was solely to gather intelligence for himself.
At the same time, Lu Sheng informed Dorun that this intelligence could be sold to fund the operations of the Heaven Listening Pavilion.
From beginning to end, Lu Sheng conveyed only one core message: he only cared about intelligence regarding the locations of monsters, and he would not interfere with anything else. If anyone contributed intelligence that proved useful to him, they would be rewarded.
Upon understanding Lu Sheng's intentions, Dorun guaranteed that he would run the Heaven Listening Pavilion well and spread the intelligence network far and wide.
With this matter resolved, Lu Sheng did not dwell too much on the faction.
After all, this was merely a tool to help him rapidly elevate his strength, and an unshaped tool at that.
The effort he spent on establishing it was also driven in part by the underlying thought of sheltering humanity.
What he needed to consider now was his future direction.
After pondering for a moment, an idea crystallized in his mind: to attack District 21!
District 13 had been completely conquered by him, leaving no monsters here for him to slaughter, and he could not simply sit here doing nothing.
Therefore, external expansion was a necessity.
The reason for choosing District 21 was simple: to annihilate monsters while simultaneously searching for the traces of the Frenzied God Cult.
As a scourge of the human race, Lu Sheng had no intention of letting them off if the opportunity arose.
Moreover, which district to attack made no difference to him.
This time, he would not lead the army in person.
The three Tier 8 subordinates in his hands were the finest commanders.
He would let them lead the troops and charge into District 21.
He would also go to District 21 to keep watch, just in case of any accidents, though he would not intervene unless necessary.
Right now, he possessed a massive amount of Origin Points and Law Stones, making a breakthrough to Tier 8 completely effortless.
According to the classification of power tiers, reaching Tier 8 marked a significant watershed compared to Tier 7.
Based on past experience, whenever a power watershed appeared, the difficulty of cultivation would increase considerably.
Lu Sheng was unaware of what the cultivation difficulty beyond Tier 8 was like, because none of the people he knew had reached Tier 8.
Naturally, he had no way of knowing the cultivation methods for that realm.
Yet he was not anxious; whatever he needed to know, he would eventually find out.
Having settled these matters, he bade farewell to Xiong Dabao and left.
It was just past the afternoon, leaving plenty of time before nightfall. Besides, his subordinates were fully capable of operating at night.
If he so wished, there would be no problem with his subordinates fighting twenty-four hours a day.
Whenever they grew tired, he could simply cast a full-status buff on them, turning them into perpetual motion machines capable of operating around the clock.
Before assembling a massive army to attack District 21, Lu Sheng intended to elevate his own realm first.
Consuming five hundred Origin Points, he exchanged for a ticket to use the Intermediate Enlightenment Platform.
The Law Stones piled up beside him disintegrated into white ash at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The second law pillars of the three laws within his body began to grow rapidly.
After an hour passed, the effects of the Enlightenment Platform dissipated.
The Law of Force successfully stepped into the third layer, giving rise to a third law pillar.
However, the laws of Time and Space fell just a fraction short.
Now wealthy and unconcerned, Lu Sheng exchanged for another Intermediate Enlightenment Platform to swiftly elevate the power of his Time and Space laws.
At his current rate of enhancement, before this usage period of the Enlightenment Platform expired, he would be able to break through both the Time and Space laws into the third layer.
As his law powers increased, Lu Sheng could clearly sense that his control over these two laws was growing increasingly profound.
The most noticeable change was that if he were to use a tenfold acceleration with his current comprehension of the Time Law, the mental and physical drain would be vastly reduced.
It would no longer result in a single strike instantly draining all the energy within his body.
As for his spatial power, his mastery had also deepened.
With his current spatial law, freezing a Tier 8 Frost Werewolf had become much simpler.
At the very least, they would no longer break free after merely two seconds of being frozen.
Killing a Tier 8 Frost Werewolf again would undoubtedly be much easier with his current strength.
Time flowed on; the Law Stones arrayed around Lu Sheng were continuously consumed, and continuously replenished by him.
An hour later.
Lu Sheng, sitting cross-legged on the ground, stretched lazily. A mound of white powder accumulated around him—the discarded residue of the Law Stones.
By this moment, all the laws within his body had reached the third layer.
Every single law now possessed a third law pillar.
With only an energy infusion missing, he could break through to Tier 8.
Origin Points were currently abundant for him; without hesitation, he exchanged for an Intermediate Energy Infusion.
The moment the exchange succeeded, boundless energy emerged from the void.
Energy condensed into a tangible substance poured into Lu Sheng's body.
It violently battered his limbs and bones before finally settling into his dantian.
Round after round of violent impacts occurred, and round after round subsided.
Imperceptibly, he felt an invisible wall appear at the location of his dantian.
The instant this characteristic manifested, Lu Sheng understood that as long as he shattered this wall, he would undergo a qualitative transformation.
The energy within his body responded to his call, surging collectively toward this spot.
Countless waves of energy slammed against the wall; whenever one wave was exhausted, a fresh torrent emerged.
At this moment, the energy infusion he had exchanged for became the ultimate helper in breaking through this realm.
Normally, most people had to rely on sheer grinding effort to breach this tier.
Slowly chipping away at this invisible wall over time.
Yet when it came to Lu Sheng, the process was entirely different; he directly assaulted it with violent surges of energy, backed by continuous energy infusions whenever his reserves ran low.
This method was not impossible, but only the exceedingly wealthy would ever employ it.
Lu Sheng controlled the energy within his body, striking the barrier again and again.
Yet until the energy infusion came to an end, this invisible wall remained unbroken.
Without a second thought, Lu Sheng exchanged for another Intermediate Energy Infusion.
Originally, Lu Sheng had assumed a single Intermediate Energy Infusion would suffice.
He had not expected things to deviate from his expectations.
Nevertheless, he felt no annoyance; the more energy required, the stronger his post-breakthrough strength would be.
To him, this could only be considered a good thing.
As the energy infusion restarted, a massive influx of energy flooded into his body.
The onslaught commenced once more... A torrent of energy coursed through the meridians of his entire body, like an endless, rushing river, ultimately crashing against the invisible wall at his dantian.
After repeated impacts, just as this wave of energy infusion was about to dissipate, the barrier was finally shattered.
The moment this barrier broke, it felt as though a door to a new world had been thrown open for Lu Sheng.
His dantian was no longer a realm of pitch-black darkness, his energy was no longer stored scattered throughout his limbs and bones, and recovery no longer required absorbing ambient worldly energy to store within his physical body.
All these functions were now unified and replaced by his newly formed dantian.
At this moment, his entire dantian had transformed into a blue ocean, with a spring located at the very center.
These blue liquids were pure energy, gushing forth endlessly from the spring at the center of the dantian.
With its formidable production speed, mere breaths were enough to fill his previously empty dantian back to the brim.
This was partially related to the fact that he was still under the influence of the energy infusion.
Yet Lu Sheng believed that even without the state of energy infusion, the rate of energy generation would still be exceedingly fast.
In other words, his future battles could be far more protracted, without the constant worry of depleting his energy reserves and lacking replenishment.
Accompanied by the breakthrough of this barrier, Lu Sheng successfully stepped into Tier 8.
Upon reaching Tier 8, his overall strength ushered in a tidal wave of explosive growth.
Whether in terms of laws or the internal energy within his body.
In both aspects, Lu Sheng now far surpassed his former Tier 7 self.
While his main body cultivated, his avatar left a spatial positioning anchor on the Floating Continent before mounting the White-Flame Blue-Scaled Bird and departing.
It flew toward District 21.
Currently, he could set approximately ten spatial anchors, allowing him to teleport to ten different locations.
During the three hours his main body spent cultivating, his avatar was already nearing the fringes of District 21.
By now, day was transitioning into dusk, and the sunset staining the horizon was breathtakingly beautiful.
Along the journey, Lu Sheng had long since devised his strategy for the assault and the deployment of his forces.
The two Tier 8 Frost Werewolves would each lead a division of Frost Werewolves, consisting of roughly 2,500 Tier 6 Frost Werewolves and a hundred Tier 7 Frost Werewolves.
As for the Corpse King, it would command the Tier 6 and Tier 7 monsters from the territory it previously governed.
Its forces numbered three thousand Tier 6 monsters, supplemented by a contingent of Tier 7 Frost Werewolves, bringing the Tier 7 count up to one hundred.
The three forces would sweep through all monsters in District 21 in a carpet-like encirclement.
Kill every monster on sight, while simultaneously dispatching four million Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes to deal with lower-tier monsters within District 21.
At the same time, they were to gather intelligence on the locations of Tier 6 monsters.
The Tier 6 forces would focus exclusively on dealing with Tier 6 monsters, or any targets the Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes could not handle.
This approach vastly reduced the cost in time.
Meanwhile, his main body continued its cultivation.
He still possessed plenty of resources in his possession; it was out of the question to stop cultivating just because he had reached Tier 8.
Although it was already night, Lu Sheng had already resolved to let his subordinates press on through the night to slaughter monsters.
Fighting day and night—in Lu Sheng's estimation, twenty-four hours of continuous combat would be enough to butcher every single monster across the entirety of District 21.
The monsters under his command were not weak, and a day and night of high-intensity combat was well within their capabilities.
Once it was over, he could simply order them to end their own lives to refresh their status.
As time ticked by, subtle changes occurred in Lu Sheng's cultivation.
Because he possessed vast quantities of Origin Points and Law Stones, even breaking through to Tier 8 had only consumed roughly one-tenth of his reserves of Origin Points and Law Stones.
Consequently, his subsequent cultivation remained extravagant as he frantically utilized the Enlightenment Platform and energy infusions.
First, he used energy infusions to directly push his realm to the perfection stage of Tier 8.
As a result, his physical constitution and the internal energy he contained multiplied exponentially across the board.
Under the enhancement of the Enlightenment Platform, his law pillars were also rapidly expanding.
They quickly surpassed the previous height of the law pillars; originally, the Law of Force pillar had stood at a height of five meters.
Reaching five meters marked the limit, allowing one to break through to the next layer.
However, the Law of Force pillar had already broken past the five-meter mark and continued to grow without the slightest hint of reaching a limit.
Lu Sheng had been mentally prepared for this, so he did not panic when this change occurred, simply intensifying his cultivation efforts.
As Law Stones were continually consumed and Origin Points dwindled,
All three law pillars broke past the height of twenty meters!
Yet still, no sign of a limit appeared!
This time, Lu Sheng was genuinely surprised.
He could understand Time and Space, but even the Law of Force pillar had reached twenty meters and still showed no sensation of saturation.
Meaning it could be elevated much further.
A sharp gleam flashed in Lu Sheng's eyes: "I'd like to see just how far this can be elevated!"
At this moment, a deep interest was kindled in him regarding the strength of the law pillars one could master after reaching Tier 8.
The advancement of the three laws made him feel that his control over law power was becoming increasingly fluid.
He himself was no longer entirely certain what kind of terrifying power he now wielded.
It would require actual experimentation and deployment to arrive at an accurate figure.
However, that experimentation would have to wait until he had pushed himself to the absolute limit.
He had no intention of halting his cultivation halfway just to run experiments.
Night descended in the blink of an eye.
Utilizing this period of time, Lu Sheng exhausted all the gains he had accumulated.
There was no sense in hoarding items capable of enhancing one's strength.
Hoarding them served only one purpose: encountering an enemy when one's strength was insufficient, getting killed by someone else, and ultimately becoming resources for another.
The Law of Force pillar finally hit its limit when it reached a height of fifty meters.
Meanwhile, the Space Law and Time Law pillars reached a height of one hundred meters.
If judged by the limits of the Law of Force, he would need to elevate the Space Law and Time Law pillars to two hundred meters before entering the next stage.
However, upon reaching Tier 8, low-grade Law Stones became exceedingly slow at enhancing the laws within his body.
A single low-grade property-less Law Stone could only increase his law pillars by roughly three centimeters.
Even if he exhausted his entire stockpile of Law Stones, he would only be able to push them to one hundred meters.
Even so, the power he commanded at this moment was undeniably formidable.
His mastery over laws surpassed the sum of all his previous improvements; naturally, the law strength beyond Tier 8 grew exponentially deeper the further one comprehended it.
Realizing the true might of laws, Lu Sheng deduced that the comprehension of laws possessed by those Tier 8 monsters he had previously slain was undoubtedly shallow.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to easily slaughter those three Tier 8 monsters with his prior strength.
With this thought, Lu Sheng personally inspected the law pillars of the three Tier 8 monsters.
A single glance was enough for Lu Sheng to guess the reason.
The Corpse King's law pillar was merely four meters tall, while the two Frost Werewolves stood at a mere three meters.
This fell short even of Lu Sheng's strength before he reached Tier 8, let alone his current state.
Lu Sheng understood the cause: it was because the Corpse King and the Frost Werewolves were only of blue quality, meaning their initial law pillars had started at a mere meter in height.
Even upon reaching Tier 8, where the required height of the law pillars surged tenfold, that only amounted to ten meters.
It could not compare even to Lu Sheng's initial Time and Space laws.
Through this realization, Lu Sheng understood that quality was the sole standard that laid the foundation for invincibility within the same tier.
As long as one's quality surpassed another's, combat prowess would invariably exceed the opponent's regardless of the tier.
Fighting across tiers was not even an issue.
If opponents shared the same quality, then victory would depend entirely on who possessed a deeper comprehension of the laws.
Yet an unexpected question lingered in Lu Sheng's mind: why were Frost Werewolves considered a top-tier race in the Blood Moon World, yet their quality was merely blue?
Logically speaking, they should at least be of purple quality.
His teachers had always taught him to ask when in doubt.
He sent a thousand-mile voice transmission to the Frost Werewolf to seek an answer.
The Frost Werewolf responded promptly.
Among their monster race, only the main royal bloodline possessed a higher quality, reaching purple quality, while the Frost Wolf Emperor was even of orange quality.
This was because the imperial family possessed special methods to inherit top-tier bloodline power.
The offspring born to an orange-quality Frost Wolf Emperor dropped by one tier in quality, and the offspring of those descendants dropped by another tier.
However, the bloodline inheritance stopped dropping after a maximum decrease of two tiers, meaning their entire Frost Werewolf race possessed a minimum baseline of blue quality.
This was the foundation that established them as one of the Five Great Races.
Every single clansman had to be of at least blue quality to qualify as one of the Five Great Races in the Blood Moon World.
After listening to the Frost Werewolf's explanation, Lu Sheng pondered carefully.
By the same logic, the remaining four great races undoubtedly operated under similar circumstances.
The Blood-Sucking Bat race's baseline could even reach the heights of purple.
Every single Blood-Sucking Bat was bound to be of purple quality.
That was somewhat terrifying; if their numbers were vast, even Lu Sheng would find them troublesome.
Bats inherently implied swarms, and Lu Sheng subconsciously assumed the Blood-Sucking Bat race was a populous faction, choosing not to question the Frost Werewolf further on the matter.
With the night growing deep, Lu Sheng prepared to sleep.
At the same time, he eagerly anticipated tomorrow noon when the Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes would mature; he longed to see whether this batch of mature mosquitoes could elevate the quality of his Temporal-Spatial Ants.
If they could, what lay beyond red quality?
The Next Day.
He had returned to the Floating Continent to sleep; returning to District 21 required nothing more than a single spatial anchor teleportation, causing no hassle whatsoever.
Upon waking up, Li Kuang and Lei Yan came to report on the status of the troops as usual.
This was a rule Lu Sheng had instituted himself, meant to keep him real-time informed of troop conditions.
The entire combat personnel of the former Gale Stronghold had already broken through to the perfection stage of Tier 5 under Lu Sheng's frantic dumping of resources.
Yet up to this point, not a single Tier 6 had emerged.
Advancing to Tier 6 was no longer simply a matter of resources; beyond resources and innate talent, this hurdle also tested one's comprehension.
Resources meant sufficient cultivation materials, talent meant the quality of one's natal card, and after fulfilling these two points, one had to consider the third: comprehension.
Comprehension referred to one's ability to perceive laws; only by sensing them could one break through to Tier 6.
These were the greatest bottlenecks restricting Tier 5 entities from entering Tier 6.
For a blue-quality natal card, accomplishing this step was quite simple.
A blue-quality quality evolution fruit was valued at one hundred thousand contribution points.
A casual glance at his own balance revealed ten billion points.
The slaughter throughout District 21 over night, combined with the yesterday's massacre across the entirety of District 13, had yielded ten billion points.
Lu Sheng immediately spent two hundred million points to exchange for two thousand blue-quality evolution fruits, handing them to Li Kuang and Lei Yan. Whether their natal cards were of white or green quality, this was sufficient to evolve them to blue quality.
In doing so, Lu Sheng solved the two prerequisite conditions for breaking through to Tier 6.
The final barrier of comprehension could only rely on themselves.
Looking at the two thousand quality evolution fruits before them, even accustomed as they were to Lu Sheng's extravagant wealth, Li Kuang and Lei Yan were stirred to profound excitement.
This meant the shackles binding them had been severed by Lu Sheng in two places; with only the final hurdle left to break, they too could become Tier 6, and ascending beyond Tier 6 would pose no problem either.
Lu Sheng looked at the trembling duo and said, "Put these away. The final hurdle to breaking through to Tier 6 depends entirely on yourselves. The opportunity has been given to you; I hope you won't squander it. If you lack inspiration, feel free to consult Xiong Dabao and the other Tier 6 seniors."
Li Kuang and Lei Yan bowed deeply, saying, "Thank you, My Lord!"
Lu Sheng waved his hand, dismissing the pair.
Lu Sheng could only instruct Li Kuang and his companion to seek guidance from Xiong Dabao and the others, hoping it might offer some assistance.
His own breakthrough to Tier 6 had been so effortless that even if he wanted to teach Li Kuang and the others, he lacked the ability to impart it.
Meanwhile, he was notified by Xiong Dabao that a morning meeting was about to be held. After a moment's thought, Lu Sheng decided to attend.
This was the faction's inaugural assembly; even if he preferred to be hands-off, he could at least listen in.
Entering the conference hall, he found a long table surrounded by chairs.
Resembling a modern conference room, the space was vast enough to easily accommodate a larger high-ranking roster in the future, requiring nothing more than adding a few chairs.
By now, everyone had arrived, with Lu Sheng making his entrance last.
Skillfully seating himself in the primary seat, Lu Sheng signaled for Xiong Dabao to begin.
Xiong Dabao caught his meaning, first instructing everyone present to introduce themselves, stating their respective departments and posts.
The primary purpose was to apprise Lu Sheng of the personnel layout.
Lu Sheng listened to this part with genuine attention.
Then, Xiong Dabao began detailing the various construction projects within the stronghold and assigning various tasks, rattling off a long list. Lu Sheng detested this sort of thing the most.
The fact that it could evoke this physiological reaction in him also proved that Xiong Dabao was a competent leader.
After rattling off a massive speech, Xiong Dabao looked toward Lu Sheng: "My Lord Leader, we've received intelligence that certain individuals in District 13 wish to join our World-Extinguishing Alliance. What are your thoughts on this matter?"
Lu Sheng pondered for a moment before replying, "Decide that for yourself. If you feel short-handed and can manage them, recruit them; if you aren't lacking personnel or cannot manage them, do not. You understand what I care about most. Your primary task is to ensure my requirements are met—make sure you keep that clear."
While granting authority to Xiong Dabao, he also issued a subtle reminder to prevent the other party from losing sight of priorities.
Xiong Dabao felt a slight tightening in his chest, realizing there were hidden implications in Lu Sheng's words: "Thank you, My Lord Leader, I know what to do."
He naturally knew what Lu Sheng desired; he had known it since the faction's inception.
What Lu Sheng required was intelligence, and nothing else mattered.
Xiong Dabao was crystal clear on this point.
Lu Sheng tapped his fingers on the table, instantly silencing the entire conference room.
"I have a proposal. All of you present are Tier 6 entities, but compared to our entire World-Extinguishing Alliance, the number of Tier 6s is still far too few. This is not a matter of resources."
"I know for a fact that quite a few of you have reached the prerequisites for advancing to Tier 6, yet remain trapped by an inability to comprehend laws and thus cannot break through."
"Therefore, I hope that each of you will write down your insights and comprehension regarding your breakthroughs to Tier 6, so that those at the perfection stage of Tier 5 who have the opportunity to break through can study them."
"Nor will I have you labor for nothing; I will compensate each of you with a Law Stone. Does anyone have any objections?"
Lu Sheng calmly swept his gaze across the room, watching to see if anyone raised objections.
To his amusement, these fellows proved utterly cooperative, declaring in unison that they had no objections and offering to write down their insights immediately.
This left Lu Sheng somewhat amused and somewhat exasperated.
He instructed them to submit everything uniformly to Xiong Dabao for processing, while also registering everyone's law attributes.
He would check whether he possessed Law Stones matching those attributes; if he did, he would award attributed Law Stones, and if not, property-less ones.
Although the majority of dropped Law Stones were property-less, he still held quite a few attributed Law Stones in his inventory.
Distributing a few to his subordinates posed no problem whatsoever.
At the same time, he instructed Xiong Dabao to make a duplicate copy of the compiled insights and pass it to Lei Yan.
With these matters concluded, the meeting came to an end.