Sage Monarch

Patriarch Deva had finally shown up.

Truth be told, he was quite surprised by how the events were playing out. Although he'd reached an agreement with Yang Qi, he had never felt completely comfortable about it. Thus, he had decided to observe him and get a better idea of what he was capable of. To his shock, Yang Qi seemed to advance rapidly with every moment that passed, giving no clue as to why or how.

This only convinced Patriarch Deva even more that Yang Qi was a clone of the Second Devil General, and that although his true self was being suppressed in the Bastille of the One God, he was able to send power to his clone.

On the one hand, Patriarch Deva knew that raising a tiger is inviting calamity, but on the other hand, he loved the increase in destiny Yang Qi was providing.

Thanks to the wealth Yang Qi had been funneling to him over the past months, he had increased his sect's destiny by thirty percent. It was a shocking thing, considering that the dynasty had reached a bottleneck in growth, which meant that, normally speaking, it was a good thing for it not to regress, much less advance. The key to advancement would have been a huge treasure trove.

Unfortunately, although the god world had plenty of treasure troves left behind by ancient gods, most were located in extremely dangerous locations. Furthermore, over the years, many of those treasure troves had already been discovered.

Given the destiny at stake, there was no way Patriarch Deva was going to let Yang Qi slip out of his hands.

Seeing Patriarch Deva, Yang Qi snorted coldly and said, "You make the decision here, Patriarch Deva."

"I don't care, Mister Second," Patriarch Deva responded. The pressure he emanated immediately locked down the entire area. Looking over at the Dragonfolk experts, he said, "Mister Second here was just joking around. Young Sir Buddha Tyrant, it's only natural that I'll restore you to your previous level."

Whizz!

A god pill flew out and entered Young Sir Buddha Tyrant's mouth.

"Eternal Encasing!" Patriarch Deva said, waving his finger to summon a sphere of primordial chaos, which surrounded him. Yang Qi could sense that time flowed differently inside the sphere as Young Sir Buddha Tyrant was healed, restoring him to his previous state.

Young Sir Buddha Tyrant rose to his feet, looking as good as new, as if he had never been injured to begin with.

"Friends from the Dragonfolk," Patriarch Deva said, "this was all a misunderstanding. Mister Second has a short temper, so I'd advise against crossing him. My true self is in seclusion right now, but I sent out this clone to explain things. Now that the misunderstanding has been resolved, please continue with the subject of the meeting." With that, the clone faded out of existence.

A mere clone of Patriarch Deva had suppressed the area, and as a result, the people from the Nine Dragons Court and the Sumeru Temple didn't dare to say a word. And after the clone left, they looked at Yang Qi with odd expressions.

Patriarch Deva was as highly-ranked as the leaders of both the Nine Dragons Court and the Sumeru Temple, and such people normally didn't make public appearances. Yet this Mister Second had summoned him with a single word. Even though it was just a clone that had appeared, the fact that Patriarch Deva had given him such enormous face was very telling.

Of course, Yang Qi was playing with fire. If Patriarch Deva knew the truth about him, the man wouldn't stop chasing him until he was dead.

Flicking his sleeve, Yang Qi said, "For the sake of Patriarch Deva, I'm not going to quibble with you people. Let's talk about the business at hand."

Many of the experts present were thinking similar thoughts.

'Oh, I see. The destiny of the Deva Dynasty is increasing because of him.'

'We have to report this back to the sect. And the patriarchs need to know how arrogant and unreasonable this Mister Second is. It seems highly likely Patriarch Deva tracked down some old-timer from the ancient era, and somehow has him under control. It's likely this Mister Second has access to an immense treasure trove, and agreed to work with the patriarch. Apparently, he doesn't really know how vicious and greedy Patriarch Deva is. Working with him is only going to lead to death.'

"Wonderful. Excellent," said a monk in a yellow kāṣāya. "Considering the Deva Dynasty has an expert like Mister Second on their side, it seems we picked just the right time to come talk about business. We have no complicated reason for being here. First, we want to work with the Deva Dynasty to explore the Bastille of the One God. Second, we heard that the Deva Dynasty is buying up resources left and right, so we combed through our storehouses to find some medicinal pills and other treasures to sell to you. For perfect caliber godstones, of course."

"That's fine," said Grand Prince Yi. "We'll take whatever you've brought. In terms of perfect caliber godstones, that's no problem. Of all the things Mister Second lacks, wealth isn't one."

That alone was enough to let all of them know that Yang Qi was incredibly rich. And it confirmed their suspicions that he was the reason behind the increase in destiny.

Standing, Yang Qi said, "You wanted to call a meeting for that? That's it? Very annoying. You didn't need to interrupt my cultivation for something like that. As for exploring the Bastille of the One God, fine. I'll lead the people from the Deva Dynasty. Now, show me what resources you've brought."

"Well, Mister Second, we have a host of god items, medicinal pills, suits of armor, spell formations, and the like, all taken from the ancient treasure troves of the Sumeru Temple. Unfortunately, we don't have any godstones to power any of them. We're a bit short on funds right now. Altogether, these items are worth one million three hundred thousand perfect caliber godstones."

"What?" Grand Prince Yi blurted in shock. "That much!?"

"Calm down," Buddha Lawtongue said. "You still have us to deal with. We have about one million five hundred thousand godstones worth of items with us."

"That's too much!" Grand Prince Yi said. "How could we afford so much?"

"It's fine," Yang Qi said. Waving his hand, he produced a spatial crystal that contained a mountain of perfect caliber godstones. "Here are three million godstones. Take inventory of everything and identify all of the quality items. Have all of them sent to me, and you keep the inferior things. I have a deal with Patriarch Deva to improve the destiny of the Deva Dynasty."

Even as Grand Prince Yi snatched the spatial crystal out of the air, Yang Qi turned and vanished. Grand Prince Yi stared down at it in shock, as did everyone else. Of course, many of them were now wrestling with feelings of envy or murderous resentment.

Suffice it to say, Yang Qi had made a big impression.

After the dust settled, and the people from the Nine Dragons Court and the Sumeru Temple left, Grand Prince Yi went to see the emperor to report on the situation. Obviously, Grand Prince Yi didn't dare to take responsibility for the situation.

The emperor was a middle-aged man, exceedingly handsome, who seemed more like a kind advisor than a powerful emperor. However, he had immense power within him, and the truth was that only those who knew him well knew what he was truly capable of.

"Your Majesty, what should we do? We just acquired a huge amount of inventory from the other two powers. Given the number of perfect caliber godstones involved, they're definitely going to try to dig for information and find out the nature of our savings. Do we give all the good things to Mister Second? Or do you want to keep them?"

After a moment of thought, the emperor replied, "Give the good items to Mister Second. He's no simple character. Patriarch Deva personally instructed us on how to handle things, and we can't afford to be lax. For now, don't do anything to offend Mister Second. After all, he was the one that paid for all of this, and it's going to do a lot to fill our storehouses and increase our destiny."

"Alright," Grand Prince Yi said. "By the way, who should we send to explore the Bastille of the One God? It's going to be very dangerous."

"Whenever we send people in there, casualties result. The place is not to be underestimated. That said, with Mister Second to lead the way, our forces should do well. Of course, now that they know he's the reason for our increase in destiny, it's highly likely they'll send people to try to kill him. We shouldn't worry about that, though. This will be a good opportunity to see how strong Mister Second really is. If he kills them, it'll save us some trouble. But if he's weaker than we expect, maybe we can arrange to have him eliminated, so that we can seize his wealth. We win either way, so why not take advantage of the situation? Do you already have a list of potential experts to recruit for the mission?"

"Yes sir! Here's a list of all the experts in the court and in seclusion. If they lead our thrall troops into the Bastille of the One God, they should be able to successfully track down some magical treasures and medicinal pills. Furthermore, I'll go along as well to direct matters."

The emperor nodded. "That would definitely be for the best. The Bastille of the One God is extremely dangerous. It seems to me the Nine Dragons Court and Sumeru Temple are in a similar bottleneck as we are. They're having trouble expanding, and not even finding a huge treasure trove will necessarily help them. It would be like adding flowers to the brocade. The Bastille of the One God is going to be where everyone really flexes their muscles. That's why you need to be very careful. And if anything unexpected happens, make sure to immediately notify both me and Patriarch Deva."

"Of course. Don't worry, Your Majesty. I'll definitely do everything necessary to further the glory of the Deva Dynasty." Nodding obsequiously, Grand Prince Yi left to make arrangements.

Meanwhile, Yang Qi was in seclusion, keeping a close watch on events outside. Soon, he noticed a group of people flying along far in the distance, eventually landing on an island with a teleportation portal on it.

Immense spatial power swept forth, taking the group to the bottom of the ocean.

The ocean floor was a huge world unto itself. Down there, crystalline palaces could be seen everywhere.

It was the home of the Dragonfolk, and the seat of power of the Nine Dragons Court. Yang Qi had implanted Buddha Tyrant with a devil embryo, acting so surreptitiously that not even Patriarch Deva was aware of what he had done.