Martial Peak

From how the younger-looking man and woman were meditating close to each other, it seemed that they were husband and wife. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have appeared so intimate; however, their appearances gave a strong sense of visual conflict, like a beautiful woman and a burly beast.

Perceiving someone had arrived, the three cultivators opened their eyes at the same time. When they saw that Jiang Shan had brought someone back with him, they all began examining Yang Kai.

“Brother Jiang, what took you so long? This old master thought something happened to you,” The old man meditating in the back asked impatiently.

“Haha, a minor matter, it just took more time to find a suitable candidate than I anticipated; fortunately, this old man managed to find this little brother,” Jiang Shan explained.

It truly was hard to find a suitable candidate. What he was looking for was someone who cultivated Fire Attribute Saint Qi and had an appropriate level of strength. If he found someone who was too strong, he wouldn’t be able to control the situation, but if he found someone too weak, they wouldn’t be of any help.

As such, a First or Second-Order Origin Realm cultivator was the best choice.

What’s more, most of the cultivators who arrived outside Fallen Emperor Mountain were now appearing in groups, so it had been hard to find a lone cultivator. Jiang Shan had wandered for two or three days and asked ten people in total, but only Yang Kai met his requirements.

“A First-Order Origin Realm brat?” The wild-looking brawny man coldly snorted, “With his low strength, won’t it be more difficult to break open the barrier? If this boy drags our heels, wouldn’t we have wasted a lot of time?”

Although he was just a Second-Order Origin Realm master, barely any higher than Yang Kai, this burly man’s tone was quite condescending.

But Yang Kai just smiled lightly and paid it no mind.

Jiang Shan quickly spoke up, “First-Order is fine, although this little brother’s cultivation is slightly lower, he only needs to take enough pills to supplement his Saint Qi when the time comes. Moreover, cracking the Spirit Array isn’t difficult. As long as we have the right number of people with the appropriate attributes, it will simply be a matter of time; there’s no requirement for individual strength.”

“If Brother Jiang says so,” The brawny man didn’t continue to haggle over the issue.

“Good. Old Jiang, shouldn’t we head out now that everyone is here? Although you said that place is quite remote and it’s unlikely to be discovered, with so many people pouring into Fallen Emperor Mountain, it’s probably best if we move quickly,” The elegant woman opened her lips lightly and said in a crisp, pleasant-sounding voice that still retained a hint of immaturity. If one were to simply listen to her voice, they would have difficulty thinking she was an Origin Realm master.

“Sister Yi is right, now that everyone is here, we should go.” Jiang Shan didn’t object, simply beckoning to everyone as he summoned his Star Shuttle and flew towards the depths of Fallen Emperor Mountain.

The other four exchange a glance before hurrying to keep up.

Along the way, everyone introduced themselves; after all, they were about to collaborate, so it wasn’t a good idea to know nothing about one another. Of course, no one went into too much detail about their origins. Yang Kai only learned that besides Jiang Shan, the other old man was He Wei, the burly man was called Chen Li, and the elegant lady was Yi Lin.

Yang Kai opted only to give his surname when asked.

After all, his current reputation on Shadowed Star was quite loud, so if he reported his full name, these people would have some questions. But since he only gave his surname, no one cared too much.

The reason Jiang Shan gathered five people to enter Fallen Emperor Mountain was because he accidentally discovered the hidden cave mansion of an ancient cultivator a few days ago. Unfortunately, a powerful Spirit Array was guarding this cave mansion that, even after several days of effort, he was unable to crack. As such, his only recourse was to exit Fallen Emperor Mountain and look for helpers.

Fortunately, he had dabbled in Spirit Arrays during his long life and, although he had failed to crack the protective array outright, he had been able to associate it with a specific Spirit Array he had read about in some ancient books called the Five Elements Scattering Array.

This Spirit Array had very distinct strong points and weak points. Its strong point was it provided excellent camouflage and was incredibly difficult for individuals to crack; however, as long as one could gather five cultivators that had Saint Qi of the Five Elements, they would be able to work together to break it.

If this Spirit Array had been in peak condition, then five Origin King Realm masters would need to be assembled to destroy it; however, after more than ten thousand years of neglect, its power had significantly reduced, and five Origin Realm masters were all that was needed.

After leaving Fallen Emperor Mountain, Jiang Shan found three suitable candidates, with Yang Kai being the last one.

Jiang Shan had mentioned the ancient cultivator’s hidden cave mansion to Yang Kai at that time, which was why Yang Kai had bothered following him.

In any case, Yang Kai had to enter the depths of Fallen Emperor Mountain, so this diversion was technically along the way for him. If he managed to obtain some benefits that would be best, if not, it didn’t matter, so Yang Kai’s enthusiasm was far lower than the other four.

“Let’s get the unpleasant business out of the way first.” After Jiang Shan finished explaining about the ancient cave mansion and the Five Elements Scattering Array, he wore a solemn look and said, “When the barrier is broken, if there really is a hidden cave mansion, this old man wants forty percent of whatever we find while the remaining sixty will be shared amongst everyone else equally.”

“Forty percent?” Hearing Jiang Shan’s words, He Wei raised his brow, but after a moment of thought, he nodded, “Good, Brother Jiang’s distribution is fair, this old man has no objections!”

Chen Li and Yi Lin naturally had no objections either.

Although the five of them were acting together, the ancient cave mansion was discovered by Jiang Shan, and he had also provided the method to crack its protective barrier while the rest of them were simply contributing some strength. Jiang Shen monopolising forty percent of the rewards wasn’t unjust.

Yang Kai rarely went out exploring with others, but he still understood such basic distribution etiquette. Ordinarily, Jiang Shan declaring he wanted half of the gains wouldn’t be considered taking the lion’s share, so now that he only wanted forty percent, everyone was naturally quite satisfied.

“What if there isn’t a way to evenly distribute the gains we find?” Yang Kai asked.

“If there aren’t enough gains to be distributed, we will naturally convert them to Saint Crystals or auction them off on the spot, the highest price winning the treasure while the rest receive some Saint Crystals,” Yi Lin looked at Yang Kai with a smile, “Little Brother, you must rarely go out treasure hunting with strangers, yes?”

“En,” Yang Kai nodded with slight embarrassment as he vaguely realised that such rules must be reasonably standard things that everyone knew.

“No wonder!” Yi Lin giggled.

Jiang Shan also smiled kindly, “Judging from Little Brother Yang having reached the First-Order Origin Returning Realm at such a young age, you must come from some famous force, so it’s only natural that you don’t know of such rules.”

“Hmph, flowers grown in a greenhouse can’t stand up to wind and rain. Little Boy, don’t you dare screw things up for us when the time comes,” Chen Li seemed to look down on Yang Kai’s strength and distrust him quite a bit.

Saying so, he turned his attention back to Yi Lin and ignored Yang Kai.

Yang Kai simply scratched his cheek awkwardly and remained silent.

After experiencing so many ups and downs on his life’s journey, overcoming innumerable hardships to reach his current strength, he was now being treated as a greenhouse flower by strangers, but no matter how he tried, he knew he wouldn’t be able to explain, nor was he interested in doing so. All of them had just met and would only be working together once before going their separate ways, thus explaining anything was meaningless.

The group of five continued on their way. At first, they would encounter all kinds of cultivators near the outskirts of Fallen Emperor Mountain; however, after these people sensed the energy fluctuations emanating from this group of five, all of them quickly avoided them.

This wasn’t surprising as a group of five Origin Realm masters was not one to be trifled with. Who knows what kind of temperament these five had? Wouldn’t it be courting death if they had wicked personalities or were easily angered?

However, as time passed and the group dove deeper and deeper into the mountain range, fewer cultivators could be seen until there were not any in sight.

Fallen Emperor Mountain was massive, and although there were now tens of thousands of people exploring this place, once they dispersed, there was rarely a chance of encountering others.

Just one day after Yang Kai entered Fallen Emperor Mountain, a team of several dozen people suddenly descended to the periphery.

A strong sense of oppression radiated from this group and the noisy crowd around Fallen Emperor Mountain’s periphery suddenly fell silent as everyone turned to look at these newcomers.

Among this large group, two people stood out as leaders. One was a middle-aged man in a blue robe who appeared both burly and sturdy while the other was wearing green robes and didn’t seem as visually imposing, but whose aura was not inferior to the blue-robed man.

After sweeping the surrounding hundred-kilometre radius with his Divine Sense, the blue-robed man frowned and muttered, “He’s not here.”

The man in the green robe smiled lightly as he took out a communication artifact and poured his Divine Sense into it, seemingly contacting someone. After putting away the artifact, he said, “Brother Qu, that little brat seems to have entered Fallen Emperor Mountain a day ago.”

“He went inside?” The blue-robed man frowned, his eyes gleaming brightly in the next moment as he slowly nodded, “Fine, this matter cannot be delayed so we should enter as well.”

“Good, I didn’t expect Fallen Emperor Mountain to experience such a great change, but it makes things more convenient for us to act; otherwise we would need to take the trouble to conceal our whereabouts and movements,” The man in the green robes grinned.

The group of several dozen only remained on the outskirts for a moment before they directly rushed into Fallen Emperor Mountain and disappeared.

After they left, the tens of thousands of cultivators on the outside of Fallen Emperor Mountain gasped.

“Heaven Battling Union’s Union Master Qu Zheng and Thunder Typhoon Sect’s Sect Master Fang Peng! Why did they come here together? Weren’t they rivals?” Someone exclaimed, apparently recognising the identities of the previous two.

“What’s so strange about that? Fallen Emperor Mountain is now rich with opportunities and many treasures are waiting to be excavated. Those two forming a temporary alliance to reap more benefits isn’t unprecedented.”

“What Friend says makes sense, but for so many masters from those two forces to suddenly run over, it seems the Sect Defending Array of the ancient Sect ruins is about to be broken.”

“Then why are we still hesitating? We need to hurry up and follow them!” A man said enthusiastically, quickly putting away his storefront and rushing into Fallen Emperor Mountain behind the Heaven Battling Union and Thunder Typhoon Sect group.

These two giants would undoubtedly be eating meat, but there should still be some soup leftover for others to drink. Opportunities and risks always coexisted, so as long as one was careful, they may be able to take advantage of this situation to reap some unexpected harvests.