When they shouted their greeting, their words echoed about as loudly as thunder.
Seeing 10,000 people lined up in front of him caused Bai Xiaochun to sigh inwardly and think back to how he had come to Great Wall City all by himself, and had climbed from the rank of captain to lieutenant, and then colonel. Now, here he was at the very pinnacle, a major general.
The mere thought of how much work he had put into becoming a major general left him sighing ceaselessly.
Finally, he waved his hand and said, “Very well, let’s go for a bit of a walk.”
With that, his thousand-man regiment from before stepped forward and fell into ranks around him to act as his personal guard. At the same time, the ten colonels under his command also stepped forward.
As they flew up into the air, the rest of the corps spread out to clear a path and make sure no one got too close.
Bai Xiaochun felt extremely excited to be so awe-inspiring, and was very pleased that all of his hard work had paid off. He even made sure to proceed along slowly so everyone could look at him, and also took time to chat with his colonels. The cautious way they carried out conversation with him left him very pleased.
Quite a few people noticed that he was parading through the city. Some time back, he had done the same thing as a colonel, but this time, he was a major general.
The news that Bai Xiaochun had been commissioned as the major general of the 3rd Corps of the Skin Flayers was big news in the Wildlands. Intelligence regarding him was actually very important in general there. Whether it was his exploding pill furnaces or his Soul Convergence Pills, everything he did seemed to hurt them.
When the news reached Mistress Red-Dust in her command tent, she looked at the intelligence report before crushing the jade slip.
“So that’s what happened the other day,” she said. “Bai Xiaochun turned in souls to get battle credit, which then earned him a promotion to major general.” Kneeling in front of her was a necromancer in a gray robe, whose cultivation base fluctuations placed him in the Nascent Soul level.
“According to the information from our spies,” he said, “that's exactly what happened. More specifically, Bai Xiaochun handed in more than 1,000,000,000 souls....” Even the necromancer almost couldn’t believe the number he had just spoken out loud.
“1,000,000,000....” Mistress Red-Dust murmured, her eyes flickering with cold light. After a moment, she waved her hand. “Send down orders to put Bai Xiaochun in 5th place on the Execution List. Increase the bounty on his head to two deva beast souls!
“Yes ma’am!” the necromancer said with a somber nod of his head. With that, he left.
Before long, word spread to Great Wall City that Bai Xiaochun was now in 5th place on the Wildlands Execution List, and that the reward for killing him had increased to two deva beast souls. When Bai Xiaochun heard the news, he was quite shocked.
“How ruthless of them....” he thought. He almost couldn’t believe that the Wildlands hated him so much that they were willing to pay two deva beast souls to see him dead.
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Chapter
525: Proud Song Que
“If things keep going on like this,” Bai Xiaochun thought, “I wonder if they’ll increase the reward to an actual deva soul one day?” After thinking about the frightening implications for a moment, he buried such thoughts and then decided that he would never again take a single step outside the Great Wall on his own.
“Hmmmph! If I do have to go out, I’ll take my entire 10,000-man corps with me. I refuse to believe that anyone in the Wildlands can kill me with them around! Of course, there might be some spies among the cultivators here, but I’m in the middle of Great Wall City after all!” Such reasoning left him feeling a bit comforted, but not completely.
“Wait a second. My cultivation base is still too low. I'm only in the great circle of the Gold Core stage. If I want to make a breakthrough, I’ll at least need a full set of deva beast souls. Metal, wood, water, fire, earth....” Although he still had a lot of battle credit, he definitely didn’t have enough to trade for a deva beast soul.
Furthermore, if he wanted to trade in one of his deva souls, he would have to wait until he was back in the sect. To pull a deva soul out by the Great Wall would be too risky.
“Maybe I can’t increase my cultivation base, but I can definitely make some progress with my Undying Live Forever Technique!” Having reached this point in his train of thought, Bai Xiaochun took out a jade slip, filled out a list of certain items he needed, and passed it off to Zhao Long to take care of.
Now that Bai Xiaochun was a major general, he had a lot of special privileges. Not only could he post simple missions without needing any authorization, but he could also make requests for supplies.
Of course, considering how much battle credit he had, he didn’t want to take advantage of his position, so he also gave Zhao Long plenty of resources to purchase the necessary items.
Before long, Zhao Long returned with the precious materials he had requested. Then, Bai Xiaochun announced that he would be going into secluded meditation, whereupon he began to cultivate his Undying Live Forever Technique.
“This time I can’t hold anything back. I have to get my Undying Live Forever Technique to the great circle of the third level!” Taking a deep breath, he pulled out an earthspirit tuber and popped it into his mouth. As the life force within the tuber began to course through him, he closed his eyes and began to work with his Undying Live Forever Technique.
Almost immediately, that life force transformed into streams of heat that flowed toward his head, where they began to take the shape of Undying Tendons.
His work required focus and concentration, and couldn’t be rushed. Thankfully, he had so much battle credit that it was easy to get the precious materials he required. Time passed. Before long, a year had gone by.
That year was mostly spent in quiet cultivation. Bai Xiaochun rarely appeared out in the open, and therefore, the talk about the events leading up to his promotion gradually began to die down.
Another half a year went by, and the talk died down even more. One day when Bai Xiaochun was sitting there cross-legged in his secluded meditation facilities, his eyes snapped open, and it almost looked like lightning was crackling within them.
Settling his breathing, he performed a double-handed incantation gesture and then waved his hands out in front of him. Instantly, all of the precious materials arrayed in front of him shattered into dust.
Then, the dust clumped together and flew into his mouth, sucked away in an instant.
Boundless life force erupted out inside of him, which Bai Xiaochun immediately sent flowing toward his head.
By this point, the Undying Tendons in his head were more than ninety percent complete, with only a tiny fraction remaining incomplete. It was almost like a huge door that needed to be slammed at with great force before it could open.
As Bai Xiaochun was completely focused on achieving a major breakthrough with the third level of the Undying Live Forever Technique, it was high noon outside, and the sun was shining down hot and bright onto the lands outside the Great Wall.
Some distance away, the same black pillar of light could still be seen shining up into the sky. It was something the cultivators of the five legions had grown used to in the more than one year since it had appeared. Although many people had been dispatched to gather information about it, nothing conclusive had ever been determined.