Chapter 370: Time To Do The Real Work

　　Fang Ping continued walking forward along the stone path on the right.

　　Along the way were some shops and some houses on either side of the stone path.

　　The shops sold a variety of goods—clothes, weapons, medicine…

　　There were even some shops that looked like they were in the carriage trade. Outside were a few monsters similar to horses; in fact, when Fang Ping looked at them, they looked just like horses.

　　But their Vitality was not strong, probably not even Rank-1.

　　These monsters could not really be considered monsters.

　　These horse-drawn carriages were only suitable for use within the city. The Willow Tree Monster was present in the Royal City; it did not suppress auras within the city, but there was aura suppression outside the city.

　　The horse-drawn carriages could be used within city limits, but the second they went outside of the city, monster beasts would attack them when they sensed the Vitality Force of the horses.

　　Fang Ping continued moving forward; the further he went, the more people there were.

　　After walking for a few thousand meters, the buildings vanished all of a sudden and a wide-open plaza appeared before his eyes!

　　There were no buildings around but there were many people present.

　　Fang Ping noticed that a few people in front of him were carrying goods; they found an empty space and tossed the goods onto the ground. Despite not making a racket to attract attention, buyers were already gathering around to have a look.

　　“Is this a market?”

　　Fang Ping guessed the purpose of the big plaza, and he could not help patting Old Li who was on his back.

　　They were really in a market!

　　This was no ordinary market either—almost all the buyers and the sellers here were martial artists.

　　There was a wide array of goods on sale.

　　There were monster carcasses, the hearts of monsters, and something that looked a little like branches, but were, in fact, the roots and leaves of plant monsters rich in energy fluctuations.

　　Fang Ping also saw a few familiar herbs and medicines; they were all of the sort that was rich with energy.

　　However, he did not see any energy stones.

　　In the Catacombs, energy stones were the main cultivation resources of the Catacombs martial artists. It was very rare that anyone would sell them to other people. Even if they sold them, it usually was through bartering.

　　Rare pre-mined metals could be seen everywhere in the market.

　　Fang Ping even recognized some of the metals. He also knew the compounding ratio of the original materials that made up the alloy compounds.

　　There were even metals that were required to make A-class alloys.

　　It was when Fang Ping was looking around that a middle-aged man who looked like a buyer came over and asked him, “What are you selling?”

　　Fang Ping saw the man looking at the animal hide package on his back; he said nothing and ignored him.

　　If he sold Old Li, would Old Li be made into a stew?

　　When Fang Ping did not answer him, the other man frowned slightly but did not pester him. This was where martial artists from the surrounding towns would come and trade, not just Fang Ping. It was just that this man saw Fang Ping carrying a Rank-3 medal and thought he had something good, hence the asking.

　　Fang Ping did not linger in one place, he was moving around and checking out the goods sold. He was even strongly tempted to steal some of the items.

　　The martial artists here were not considered strong. Rank-3 was considered powerful already, and precious few were middle-ranked.

　　There were still some valuable items to be found—rare metals and the main ingredients for an assortment of pills could be found everywhere.

　　As far as the trading system went…Fang Ping saw people using energy stone crystals for bartering.

　　Energy stone crystals might be useless, but if they were used as currency, naturally they would be given an appropriate value. If the Royal City acknowledged it, that item would have value.

　　This did not happen across the board however; some people also used energy stones that had not yet been depleted. Usually, though, they were for items that were slightly more costly.

　　Energy stones, which the people in the Catacombs called life stones, were the main resources for cultivation, and also the main currency for trade.

　　As Fang Ping walked, his ears did not stop fluttering. He was listening attentively to the conversations between the martial artists.

　　The longer he came into contact with the people from the Catacombs and the more he eavesdropped on their conversations, the better he could guess at the approximate meanings of some of the words. They were different from the other Catacombs where the martial artists would only fight to the death when they met. It was rare for the Catacombs martial artists to exchange words with humans they encountered.

　　This was a newly opened Catacomb within the Royal City itself, yet these martial artists did not really concern themselves with the affairs of human martial artists.

　　“I heard that the Royal City is going to recruit soldiers!”

　　“Recruit soldiers? Are they starting a war with Cretaceous City?”

　　“No, it’s the Foreign Territory powerhouses! In the morning there were two Masters from the inner city conversing, and I happened to overhear them. They said powerhouses were coming from the Foreign Territory, and war is imminent.”

　　“The Royal City has a large contingent, and we have Gigantic Willow Divine Guards here, do we even need to be scared of the foreigners?”

　　“You don’t know the half of it, don’t tell anyone else but I heard that the Gigantic Willow Divine Guards suffered great losses yesterday. Out of three thousand Gigantic Willow Divine Guards, at least a thousand died yesterday!”

　　“So many? How is that possible! The minimum rank for the Divine Guards is Rank-4, right? There were many generals too…”

　　“It’s true; yesterday they tried to annihilate the foreign powerhouses. I heard that the foreigners who came were powerhouses ranked general or above. The Divine Guards rushed to the front, but out of the generals who went, beside the ones on the periphery, the rest were all killed in battle!”

　　“The foreigners are that strong?”

　　“I heard that they’re powerful, and they’re not afraid to die. About a dozen of their generals killed dozens of Divine Guard generals. Even the conscripted generals from the families and sects were almost entirely slaughtered…”

　　“Then can we defeat them?”

　　“…”

　　The discussion was not confined to this place; there were also a great many who already knew about the news of the recruitment drive for soldiers in Royal City.

　　The people from the outskirts might not know of the huge losses from yesterday, but everyone from the Royal City knew.

　　Countless generals had either died or were injured; four chieftains had fallen, and there were even venerables who had fallen.

　　Even the Willow King would not be able to cover up such a massive situation.

　　These powerhouses had loved ones and families too.

　　The three thousand Gigantic Willow Divine Guards were the key force that made Gigantic Willow City world-renown, all three thousand of them middle-ranked powerhouses.

　　They were different from Sky Gate City. Sky Gate City had been at war with humans for many years, thus their army had expanded to hundreds of thousands of people.

　　Before Gigantic Willow City went to war, apart from the Gigantic Willow Divine Guards who formed their core army, they did not even have fifty thousand people in their normal army.

　　Old Man Li and the others had killed a great many powerhouses yesterday despite being few in number.

　　At the end of the battle when Old Man Li slashed the Rank-8, his energy blade flew in all directions and killed almost all of the middle-ranked martial artists within the perimeter. Even their chieftains could not react in time.

　　As Fang Ping heard all of this, he gradually formed an analysis in his mind.

　　“Three thousand middle-ranked martial artists, with an army of fewer than fifty thousand lower-ranks. No that’s not right, now there may only be two thousand middle-ranks left.

　　“Even among the fifty thousand lower-ranks, in every hundred there was one middle-ranked general. Now there probably aren’t even three thousand middle-ranked powerhouses in Gigantic Willow City.

　　“Many Rank-6 martial artists died yesterday; in the army, there should be only fifty of them at best.

　　“The chieftains were Rank-7 and four died in battle unexpectedly yesterday. Governor-General Zhang and the others were certainly merciless.”

　　When he heard that four chieftains had fallen yesterday, Fang Ping had still been surprised.

　　Yesterday when he was soaring across the air, he had given things a cursory glance, and the other party still had seven people. This meant that after he left, two more from the other party had died.

　　After all, at the time Zhou Zhengyang was already dead and Zhang Dingnan and the Vice-chancellor of NMAU were gravely injured. Under these circumstances, they still were able to kill two others, which was unexpected.

　　Maybe Gigantic Willow City was still not used to the fighting mentality of humans. Even if they were going to die, human beings had to take a few enemies with them. This was a habit that the humans had after all these years at war with the people from the Catacombs.

　　To Fang Ping, the ongoing war that Gigantic Willow City had with Cretaceous City for so many years before this was just spats and squabbles.

　　He had heard that they had been at war for hundreds of years, yet no chieftains had died. How could this be considered a war of life and death?

　　However, Gigantic Willow City had more than five Rank-7s left. There were a few others that had not gone into battle yesterday but had instead stayed behind to guard the City.

　　As to how many there were, Fang Ping was not too sure, but at most, there would be about ten of them.

　　There were definitely only two Rank-8s left.

　　“One Rank-9, two Rank-8s, about ten Rank-7s, and the Rank-6s that are in and out of the city, including the martial artists among the common folk—that would be about a hundred of them.

　　“Altogether there might be more than five thousand middle-ranked martial artists in the city.”

　　Strength-wise, they were much weaker compared to Sky Gate City before it had suffered its losses.

　　Before the two Rank-8s from Sky Gate City died, the upper end of their combat strength was about the same as Gigantic Willow City, but Sky Gate City had an army of two hundred thousand!

　　The number of middle-ranked martial artists was close to ten thousand people!

　　“If Gigantic Willow City has no reinforcements, seizing their strongholds won’t be that hard. We don’t even need a Rank-9; just a few Rank-8s should be enough to take down one of the strongholds without any problems.

　　“But Gigantic Pine City might have already sent in reinforcements. In that case, without the support of a Rank-9, it might be harder to capture the strongholds.”

　　Fang Ping did not pay much attention to the giant tree in the city.

　　Just a look at its gigantic size was enough to indicate that it would not be easy for it to move around. Not only that, but this gigantic willow tree had also always been within the city and had never left. It might not be best suited to offense, but as a defense, it was not a bad option at all.

　　“As I recall, Sky Gate City also had a huge tree; could it also be a tree monster? It must be, but it’s never emerged for the last few years. It must be true that they can’t move around easily.”

　　As he was having these thoughts, Fang Ping felt melancholy again. He kept telling himself that Gigantic Willow City might not be that strong.

　　However, he could not forget that this was only one city from one Catacomb!

　　How many Royal Cities were there in the Nanjiang Catacombs?

　　Fang Ping still did not know. Based on previous experiences, one Catacomb would have at least ten cities while some even had twenty. The Capital City Catacombs had twenty cities.

　　Of course, that was previously. Now the Capital City Catacombs had two fewer cities. During the big battle, even though they were not able to destroy the Capital City Catacombs, they had still destroyed two cities.

　　“Capital City Catacombs has two cities destroyed now…”

　　Fang Ping suddenly realized something—one Royal City was one energy mine!

　　The government might just have a lot of energy mines stored up!

　　Although they had suffered severe losses then, with two cities destroyed, it could not be that they did not receive anything in return.

　　In recent years, the appearance of so many Grandmasters had to be related to that war.

　　“MCMAU has embarked on a long journey carrying a heavy burden. We couldn’t even stand against one city, let alone one Catacomb. To face more than ten high-ranked powerhouses, MCMAU still has a long way to go.

　　MCMAU has about twenty martial artists who are Rank-6, which makes a big difference.

　　In terms of Rank-4s and Rank-5s, MCMAU doesn’t even have 400 people. Gigantic Willow City has ten times as many people compared to MCMAU!”

　　Fang Ping shook his head. One school against one Catacomb—it sounded easy but was nigh-impossible to achieve.

　　Right now if MCMAU were to gather the full might of the school, even if they went up against Sky Gate City which had already suffered tremendous losses, they might not even win. The chances of MCMAU’s army being completely overwhelmed were far higher.

　　Sky Gate City still had one more Rank-9, one Rank-8, and many Rank-7 powerhouses.

　　“Is Elder Liu dead or alive? If he died in battle, then MCMAU’s strength has dropped once again.”

　　Human beings were selfish, they tended to divide people into those that had a close relationship with them and those who were distant from them.

　　Among the Grandmasters that entered the Catacombs this time, Fang Ping might not have felt overly sad if some of them fell, but if Liu Polu were dead, he would be exceedingly grieved.

　　This was similar to when the other Rank-6 powerhouses fell in battle and Fang Ping felt immense grief, but when he had to save people, he had only risked his life to save Li Changsheng.

　　After a moment of random thoughts, Fang Ping continued strolling around. At the same time, he listened to the discussions and conversations between the martial artists from the Catacombs.

　　Some even spoke of the opening up of the Fountain of Life.

　　However, most of the martial artists here were from the peripheral towns or other Royal Cities.

　　They had no right to be in proximity to the Fountain of Life because the Fountain of Life was within the core of the city.

　　With the opening up of the Fountain of Life, however, energy was overflowing in huge amounts. Even in the outer city, the energy concentration would increase by leaps and bounds. Gigantic Willow City did not prohibit martial artists from entering the outer city when the Fountain of Life opened up; they could also use this opportunity to cultivate.

　　Although the results might not be much, it would be better than nothing.

　　“In the inner city?”

　　Fang Ping exhaled lightly. It would not be easy to get in.

　　From indications given by the crowd, the inner city was difficult to enter; not just anyone could go in.

　　With some regret, Fang Ping left the plaza.

　　There were many items here; if he were to steal them all, Fang Ping felt he could easily sell them for five or six hundred million.

　　If he robbed this place though, it would probably be difficult for him to escape from Gigantic Willow City.

　　He walked along the plaza and continued onward. Along the way, Fang Ping noted the locations of certain shops. He did not note the ordinary ones, instead, he committed to memory which ones were extremely rich in energy!

　　In the area was something similar to the banks that human beings used!

　　Banks in the world of human beings only stored gold or coins.

　　However, these Catacombs banks stored energy stones.

　　In the Royal City, there was a service where people could choose to exchange low-purity level energy stones for energy stones that could be used for cultivation. Of course, the exchange rate was formidable.

　　In the Catacombs, there were plenty of low-purity level energy stones. Most of the smaller mineral veins contained these low-purity level energy stones.

　　Monsters did not care much about them; even the powerhouses from the Catacombs did not think they were very valuable.

　　These were the energy stones that most commoners in the Catacombs could get their hands on, however.

　　They could mine the stones and exchange them for high-purity level cultivation-aiding energy stones in the Royal City. As for the low-purity level energy stones that the Catacombs took back, Fang Ping did not know if they could be refined further, or used for something else.

　　Here in the Royal City, many shops specifically dealt with these exchanges; Fang Ping saw quite a few around.

　　Even though he could not read Catacombs writing, he could see people taking large quantities of low-purity level energy stones into the shops and coming out with high-purity level energy stones.

　　After some thought, he could guess at the function of these shops.

　　“They might not be easy to rob though, there seems to be a Rank-6 in every shop.”

　　Fang Ping sighed. However, there were one or two shops that had only a Rank-5 in charge instead of a Rank-6; he could target those.

　　Gigantic Willow City was huge. Fang Ping had been walking for almost an hour, and he still was not at the boundary between the inner and outer city.

　　As for the giant tree, the more he walked forward, the more he realized that he had underestimated its height.

　　It was more than a hundred meters tall!

　　Fang Ping had not even seen a building as tall as this in Magic City. Some were about five to six hundred meters high, but because there were many tall buildings in Magic City, if they were not observed from up close, it was not as obvious.

　　However even though the giant tree was so far away, it still caught his attention. Fang Ping guessed that it was probably about four to five hundred meters tall.

　　“It’s so tall and so broad; I wonder how much energy it’s absorbed! If I were to bring this tree back to MCMAU, I think it could absorb all the energy particles in Magic City. If it did not absorb energy but discharged it instead…tsk tsk, Magic City would be the promised land of cultivation.”

　　“It’s hard to say though—after plants cultivate into a spirit, they might not always absorb energy, otherwise, wouldn’t all the energy in Gigantic Willow City be completely absorbed? Up to a certain rank, if the energy isn’t lost and its rank doesn’t increase, it might not need to absorb any more energy.

　　“Otherwise, the Fountain of Life wouldn’t exist any longer. It would already have been absorbed by this plant monster.”

　　Fang Ping stared at the giant tree with gleaming eyes, and for a moment, he considered chopping it down and taking it back with him.

　　The crystal clear tree trunk would be useful whether it was used for making weapons or cultivation materials.

　　Could the toughness of a Class-A alloy compete with the toughness of the tree trunk?

　　No, the forging of a Divine Weapon had some relation to these materials. Divine Weapons were excellent items.

　　The golden-yellow blood also contained endless amounts of energy. If it were used as materials for pills, one might be able to create countless pills as well.

　　“If I chop this tree down, MCMAU might even be able to produce a few thousand middle-ranked martial artists—perhaps even a group of Grandmasters!”

　　However, if he were to chop it down, he might not be able to take the whole thing back. It was too big and might not fit into the passageway.

　　“If only my storage space were a few thousand cubic meters wide, then I’d be able to bring it back, but to cut it down… I might not be able to do it without a Divine Weapon.”

　　Fang Ping mumbled to himself for a while before he started observing his surroundings attentively. He wanted to look for an inn to stay so he did not need to go gallivanting everywhere.

　　If he stayed, he might be able to try digging underground.

　　Above ground, he did not dare do anything rash.

　　But below ground, if he concealed his aura…this meant he could not take Old Li along with him, otherwise, he would be noticed too easily.

　　Once he concealed his aura, as long as he did not stir up any great activity when he was below ground, it would still be relatively safer.

　　After looking for a while, Fang Ping saw a place that looked like an inn. He stood opposite it and listened for some time; once he had a clear picture of things, he approached it.

　　Very quickly, with a price of ten energy stone crystals, Fang Ping managed to get a place to stay with a fairly decent environment.

　　Two days!

　　Halfway through, Fang Ping used his Mentality to display a Peak Rank-3 martial artist’s energy fluctuation. As the Fountain of Life was opening soon, the innkeeper understood the situation. When Fang Ping uttered “Do not disturb” in a hoarse voice, the other man quickly nodded his head.

　　This was a powerhouse who was preparing to break through to Rank-4. Seizing the opportunity afforded by the Fountain of Life opening up, he had come specifically to achieve his breakthrough.

　　If he was interrupted because of the inn, that would be problematic. Even though people who came to inns to achieve breakthroughs were probably not people with stellar backgrounds, why court trouble needlessly with matters that did not concern one?

　　…

　　Led by a regular Catacombs human, Fang Ping entered the small yard and immediately closed the door, going into his room.

　　“Old Man Li, we’re just about done with scouting around, it’s time to do the real work!”

　　Fang Ping said this as a matter of course; he was done with scouting about for intelligence.

　　He had data on the number of people who were Rank-7, 8, and 9, as well as the number of middle-ranked people—a good amount of information.

　　As for the rest, Fang Ping felt there was no need to check that out. The most important thing now was to build his stronghold; if he had time he could come again to check things out further.

　　The real work naturally was in regards to the Fountain of Life.

　　As to the locations of the energy stone exchange shops, he had taken note of about seven or eight which was more than enough—any more would be useless.

　　Being here meant he was using more than ten million wealth every day; Fang Ping certainly felt the pinch.

　　“Qin Fengqing and the others managed to seize a huge energy stone, and I still have nothing; I can’t possibly get less loot than them, right? Otherwise, I’ll be a laughing stock when I go back.”

　　“I should go below ground to check things out first. I’ll leave you here, you better watch yourself. When I’m not around and someone were to find you, don’t blame me if you’re taken away to be barbequed…”

　　Fang Ping might have grumbled but the truth was, he was helpless in the matter. His energy shield was only useful to him alone. If he took Old Man Li underground with him, they would very quickly be discovered.

　　A martial artist’s perceptions were very acute. Once they had reached the high-ranks, Old Li would be quickly detected with just a sweep of their Mentality.

　　This time Li Changsheng did not act out; it really was not safe to go below ground to look around.

　　It was impossible that the Catacombs would not take precautions especially with an energy mine underground. If they were that stupid, the mines would long since have been depleted.