Sage Monarch

The Unbounded level was considered a monumental upgrade. Even with a thirty percent increase in Yang Qi's psychic power, he couldn't defeat opponents like that. However, he was convinced that, with enough hard work on his part, he could unlock another thirty to fifty percent of the Wretched Brain God Art. After all, his knowledge base surpassed even the Perfect Gods he had just been dealing with.

Time passed as he stayed in place and worked on his cultivation.

Eventually, he physically transformed, becoming an enormous brain that pulsed with such immense psychic power it seemed capable of devastating the highest heavens, and slaughtering both the legion of gods and horde of devils. And thanks to the boost in psychic power, his energy arts became vastly mightier.

That said, reaching the Unbounded level would still be immensely difficult. It wasn't a transformation that would occur overnight.

From what he could tell, his best shot was still the Mahātmā Jade.

"Get out here!" Yang Qi said, and the fifteen wretch-gods scattered, their faces tinged with terror, as well as varied expressions of shock, entreaty, self-deprecation, grief, and just pure fear.

They were no longer Perfect Gods who could rebuke heaven and earth; instead, they were pitiful slaves.

After everything Yang Qi had done to them, their thoughts had been stripped clean. As he experienced burst after burst of enlightenment, they felt immense pressure crushing down on them until his psyche left them powerless to resist.

They had no choice but to accept their misfortune. It was simply their fate.

"Is there anything else you have to say for yourselves?" Yang Qi asked King Blacktooth. "I've taken the Wretched Brain God Art away from you, and deprived you of your physical bodies. Now my understanding of the technique even surpasses yours by many times over. Why not just willingly work for me now? We'll start with you, King Blacktooth. Do you agree?"

"We have no choice but to accept our fate. As long as you agree not to kill us, we'll do anything." King Blacktooth looked crestfallen. He could sense the devil embryo slowly growing inside him, controlling him, like a parasite slowly eating away at him, turning him into the walking dead.

It was no illusion. If Yang Qi wanted to, he really could turn him into a zombie.

"Well, that's good," Yang Qi said. "We need to change your names. From now on, you'll share my surname, Yang. And your names will be Wretch-One, Wretch-Two, and so forth, all the way to Wretch-Fifteen. King Blacktooth, you'll be Yang Wretch-One, got it? You now belong to me, my faithful slaves. Incidentally, your wretch energy is too intense and appalling. If you go out like this, you'll terrify everyone you meet. I'm going to impart a new, more powerful ability to you, which will allow you to cleanse your wretch-god energy and fuse with righteousness. With a mere thought, you can become heroic, and with another, ruthless. Follow along as I demonstrate...."

Drawing on the God Legion Seal, he sent out a stream of golden fire to surround them.

What followed was a hundred days of cultivation in which he thoroughly transformed all of the Perfect Gods. King Blacktooth, who was now Yang Wretch-One, had once possessed a mouth full of pitch-black teeth, and emanated a noxious aura of wretched evil. But now he looked like a stately, middle-aged man who stood tall and straight, a golden cloak draped over his shoulders, pulsing with an immense fighting prowess.

Buzzzz.

All fifteen of the Perfect Gods experienced similar changes, and transformed physically. The sinister Granny Witch-Ghost now resembled a kindly old woman from a rich and noble family.

"You're now my slaves," Yang Qi said, "and you are hereby tasked with administering the business here. Also, you shall hand over any Unbounded medicinal pills you have. Understand?"

He quickly stored away all the pills they handed over.

In total, he now had thirty-two Unbounded medicinal pills, all of which were very rare. After all, even Perfect Gods would find it hard to track down more than two or three such pills.

With this new group of experts in the Sage Monarch Consortium, the business would definitely be safe without Yang Qi there to personally watch over things. They now belonged completely to him, and thanks to the God Legion Seal, no one would ever be able to tell who they were in the past. Their energy arts were more impressive than before, and in terms of their looks and bearing, they had gone through heaven-shaking, earth-toppling transformations.

Furthermore, they all now had golden thrones in the God Legion Seal.

The thirty-two god pills looked like walnuts, or more precisely, like brains, as if literal brains had been shrunk into the form of medicinal pills.

Truth be told, that was exactly what they were.

They were called Ultimate Brain Pills, and were made by Paramount Gods from the League of Wretch-Gods. The concocting method was relatively simple; it involved capturing young geniuses from opposing sects, then refining their brains in pill furnaces along with various medicinal ingredients.

Yang Qi could sense that each of the Ultimate Brain Pills abounded with pure psychic power that made them no weaker than the buddhist, daoist, and confucian pills he had encountered. Without any hesitation, he chomped down the pills, which caused numerous flows of energy to sweep through him.

Sadly, after it was over, he found he hadn't experienced any sort of major breakthrough.

Monarch godhood required even more astonishing levels of power than this.

On the upside, consuming the Ultimate Brain Pills helped significantly with the Wretched Brain God Art. Obstacles were cleared, and new knowledge coalesced in his sea of consciousness.

Drawing on the Wretched Brain God Art, he could send psychic fluctuations rolling out that shredded space, and created dimensional passageways leading for thousands of kilometers in every direction.

He was now at the point where he could at least fight to the death with an Unbounded expert.

**

"What? The fifteen experts the third prince hired haven't sent any updates? And the Sage Monarch Consortium's business is booming?" The junior houselord of the House of God Ordainment was enraged. He had left the god kingdom in the hopes of personally witnessing Yang Qi being killed. However, he hadn't been able to get any news, and actually had no idea where Yang Qi was.

Eventually, he had simply returned.

After a few months without even a single update, he was getting very angry. Then he saw that the Sage Monarch Society continued receiving huge shipments of materials, allowing its members to achieve breakthroughs, and of course boosting their reputations so that more and more people wanted to join them. The leaders of other factions were constantly complaining about how many of their members were resigning and switching to the Sage Monarch Society.

Jadefall and the others were obviously playing for keeps. It didn't matter who joined the Sage Monarch Society, they were automatically given resources, medicinal pills, magical treasures, and even special techniques, all with no questions asked. It was very different from the House of God Ordainment in general, in which one had to go on missions to get any sort of reward.

Such methods were usually counterproductive, but in the early stages of an organization, they were a great way to attract new members. After all, the Sage Monarch Consortium could provide an endless influx of wealth.

If things went on like this, it wouldn't take three hundred years for the Sage Monarch Society to become the top faction. It would be more like thirty years.

The junior houselord felt like he was going crazy. Worse, he didn't have any idea what to do next.

"There's no news from the League of Wretch-Gods?" he asked again.

The Perfect God chief elder replied, "Not at the moment. They sent fifteen Perfect Gods to capture Yang Qi, but they haven't accomplished the mission yet, nor returned. However, they said that this is nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe we should wait another four or five years to see what happens."

"What?! Wait another four or five years?" The junior houselord furiously kicked a nearby table, shattering it. "By that point the Sage Monarch Society will be so powerful they'll be shitting all over me!"

As the junior houselord vented his rage, the chief elder thought to himself, 'The Sage Monarch Society really is growing quickly. I wonder if I should switch loyalties. This junior houselord always seems to be on the losing end of things. Destiny is shifting, and the Sage Monarch Society seems to be on the way to the top.'

He wasn't the only chief elder to be thinking in this way.

"I'm going to personally speak with someone from the League of Wretch-Gods," the junior houselord said, vanishing.

Meanwhile, the Sage Monarch Consortium had expanded their area of control in the Wasteland Bazaar to a full ten thousand square kilometers. Wealth was constantly pouring into their coffers, and the disciples patrolled the area constantly to repel any invasions. Spell formations protected things above and below, and were powered by noble and imperial caliber godstones. Furthermore, there were other spell formations operated by both slaves and disciples alike, used to create weapons and such.

There were even slaves who were Greater Gods.

As for the fifteen Perfect Gods, they kept an eye on everything. Thanks to their help, the consortium had forcibly recruited a lot of experts to work for them, and business was booming more than ever.

The cheapest thing in the Wasteland Bazaar was life, and with fifteen Perfect Gods to handle things, they could get their hands on however many slaves they wanted.

Right now, Yang Qi stood on the tallest tower in their territory, looking out over the Wasteland Bazaar with a pleased smile on his face. His foundation was finally complete.