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"Master." After a long, stunned pause, Jiao Qi looked at Ye Zichen in utter bewilderment. He was a mighty ninth-stage earth supreme, yet just holding the Devil Dharma Body set his hands trembling.

That's right, they were really trembling.

Nevermind a ninth-stage earth supreme; even if a diviner showed up, when they saw that ludicrous list of ingredients, they'd tremble too.

"Is there a problem?" Ye Zichen had no particularly sense of how valuable these ingredients were. He knew that a few of the ingredients were rare and expensive, but he'd never seen any other supreme dharma body technique and didn't have a sense for how costly the Devil Dharma Body really was.

"There is." Even though Ye Zichen was the master of the Yao-Sealing Pagoda, Jiao Qi had no choice but to dash his hopes. He gulped, then laughed drily, "Master, this dharma body technique of yours isn't one of the standard hundred and eight, is it?"

"That's naturally not a problem. The universe is so huge that not even a ruler would dare say for sure that the standard hundred and eight dharma bodies are the only ones in existence. There are undoubtedly techniques outside of their ranks."

"Then what's the problem?" said Ye Zichen, looking right at him.

"The problem is….. This dharma body is far, far too costly." With that, Jiao Qi, who wasn't too delicate with words in the first place, could no longer hold himself back. "Let's start by comparing it with an ordinary dharma body technique. Black Jade is necessary, but hundred-year jade is fine, and you only need a dozen or so kilos. Yet your technique demands one hundred and fifty kilos, and furthermore, they have to be ten-thousand years old…. Your subordinate fears that the entire God Realm combined contains less than five hundred kilos of ten-thousand-year black jade."

"Also, thousand-year divine wood and heavenly god fruits…. Those are treasures that fetch tens or even hundreds of millions of coins at auction, but whoever came up with that technique of years things they're as readily available as bok choy; it demands dozens of each!"

"Also…." The more Jiao Qi spoke, the more worked up he got, until his mouth couldn't stop firing off an endless stream of complaints.

Ye Zichen hadn't understood the Devil Dharma Body's ridiculous price, but after listening to Jiao Qi, he roughly understood it.

However, he also understood the concept of "high cost, high payoff." If he could truly condense this dharma body, it would undoubtedly by stronger than any ordinary dharma body.

Right now, all he needed to know was if the Yao-Sealing Pagoda had the necessary resources or not.

However, before he could even open his mouth and ask, Jiao Qi answered his question for him. "There's no way to build your dharma body."

"The pagoda doesn't have enough resources?" Ye Zichen arched his brows.

"It doesn't, it definitely doesn't. Besides, this is just the first floor. Everyone locked in here is an earth supreme at most. Even if we had access to heavenly god fruits and ten-thousand-year black jade, none of us could use them," said Jiao Qi at a bit of a loss for words.

Ye Zichen felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. Chen Jiannan and the others were outside the pagoda at this very moment, eying him hungrily and watching to prevent his escape. It was obvious they wouldn't leave until he did.

The Devil Dharma Body was his only hope of turning things around, but now Jiao Qi was telling him they didn't have the resources?

"This isn't a joke, is it?" Ye Zichen's jaw dropped, and he stood there for a while, unsure of what to say. He waved his hand and summoned another screen to examine the situation outside.

The three encampments seemed to have reached an understanding. They really did split into shifts to monitor him continuously.

As soon as Ye Zichen poked his divine awareness outside, several others locked onto him.

The instant Chen Jiannan's awareness locked onto him, his eyes popped open. "You'd best hurry up and step outside."

"Didn't you say you were willing to wait it out? Go ahead and wait, then," said Ye Zichen. With that one final snipe, Ye Zichen withdrew his divine awareness.

His expression was grave. Once you got on a tiger's back, it was hard to get back down.

"Jiao Qi."

"I'm here," said Jiao Qi immediately.

"Go gather up all the medicines in the first layer of the Yao-Sealing Pagoda that can boost divine power, then bring them to me. Aren't they willing to wait for me? Then I'll just let them wait around outside. Once I open the second floor of the pagoda, they can forget about escaping."

"Yes, sir."

Time flowed like water and months flew by. Three years passed in the blink of an eye.

In the next three years, Ye Zichen didn't take so much as a single step out of his hidden room. In addition to gorging on medicines to improve his cultivation, he focused on comprehending the Dao of the Five Elements.

"Jiao Qi, have some fruit," said a beautiful woman bearing a basket of fruit. She was yet another of the first layer of the Yao-Sealing Pagoda's leaders, Meng Huairong.

The Yao-Sealing Pagoda contained its own dimension. There were quite a few fruit trees inside; that's where she got the fruits.

"You're here." Jiao Qi nodded at her from his stone chair then plucked an immortal fruit from the basket. However, he paused for a while without so much as taking a bite.

"Master has already been in seclusion for three years already, right?" asked Jiao Qi.

"A bit more than that." Meng Huairong nodded. "Are you worried about him? At our level, it's possible to seclude yourself for decades, or even hundreds of years. Disappearing into his room for just three years isn't worth worrying over."

"I'm naturally not worried about Master," said Jiao Qi through furrowed brows. "I'm worried about the people outside."

His gaze landed on the screen displaying the outside world. Chen Jiannan and the others took shifts, but they hadn't left the Yao-Sealing Pagoda unattended once since Ye Zichen started seclusion.

"Them….? Just let them go on waiting. They can't open the pagoda."

"But not long ago, it seems like one of them went to ask a diviner-level expert to come. The gap between diviners and supremes is no small thing. What if they break through the seal protecting the pagoda? What would we do then?"

"Diviners? They're going to look for diviners?" said Meng Huairong in surprise.

Three years passed outside the Yao-Sealing Pagoda, but it wasn't enough to diminish their thirst for the Xuan-Yuan Sword.

After three years, all the sky supremes on site were visibly exhausted. Although they took shifts to recover their energy, taking shifts wasn't enough to recover after using their divine awareness for so long.

Of them, Jackdaw was in the highest spirits. He wasn't all that obsessed with the Xuan-Yuan Sword to begin with.

His focus wasn't on Ye Zichen, but rather Yin Hu and Chen Jiannan. He intended to interfere the second one of them got their hands on the Xuan-Yuan Sword.

"How embarrassing," he said. "Aren't you ashamed to rush back and beg for reinforcements?"

Chen Jiannan wasn't around; it seemed that the three years had worn down his patience. Not long ago, he'd returned to the God Realm to find his master and force the Yao-Sealing Pagoda open.

Yin Hu had also gone to notify diviners of the yao race. The only ones who hadn't were the demons.

"Jackdaw, are you certain you don't want to call for a diviner-level expert?" asked Quinn.

"Why should I? I've got too much shame to do something like that," he said with a sneer. "What, are you worried their diviners will lay hands on us?"

Before Quinn could respond, a rift opened in the sky and two transcendent presences stepped down and into the wastes.