And yet… here was Bai Hao, a Nascent Soul expert, an elite cultivator with shocking battle prowess, whose sharp words left them feeling completely helpless.
Sima Tao was the first to recover. Gritting his teeth, he said, “At this point, Bai Hao, words are meaningless. It doesn’t matter whether you admit it or not, today… I challenge you to a duel! Not a duel of magical techniques, but a duel of flame conjuring! Whoever loses will get the hell out of Arch-Emperor City, and never conjure a single flame again for all time!”
At this point, Sun Yifan also recovered. He knew that the incident with the soul medicine was something very damaging that had to be recovered from. Right now, the most important way to go about doing that was to get revenge. If they could crush this Bai Hao once and for all, they could wipe away their disgrace, and slowly recover from the humiliation of recent days.
With such thoughts on his mind, he shouted, “That’s right, Bai Hao. I also challenge you to a duel. Since you're good enough to tamper with soul medicine, then let’s see how good you actually are at flame conjuring!”
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Chapter
739: A Wager!
Bai Xiaochun’s expression flickered slightly. If it were a competition of spirit enhancement, then as long as he had enough flame, he could be completely confident. However, Sima Tao and Sun Yifan were obviously aware that he had defeated Chen Xiong in just such a competition, and that he could perform fifteenfold spirit enhancements. Besides, when it came to spirit enhancement, because of how success rates worked, no one could ever be absolutely confident in winning.
That was why they didn’t mention spirit enhancement. And when all was said and done, necromancers also had to be proficient in the other skills of flame conjuring and soul medicine concocting. And because flame conjuring was how one went about concocting soul medicine, the foundation of everything came down to flame conjuring.
However… Bai Xiaochun was not completely confident when it came to flame conjuring. At the moment, he still couldn’t conjure seventeen-colored flame, and even had problems succeeding consistently with sixteen-colored flame.
And thus, his expression flickered slightly.
Although Sima Tao and Sun Yifan couldn’t compete with Bai Xiaochun in a battle of words, they had both lived many years and experienced many things. As a result, they could instantly tell what he was thinking.
Seeing that, Sima Tao added, “If we’re going to compete, then we also need to have a little wager. The stakes are the right to stay in Arch-Emperor City! If you lose, you have to get the hell out of the city, never perform spirit enhancements again, and also give up your shop! If you win, then I’ll hand my shop over to you!”
“And mine as well!” Sun Yifan said with a cold smile. “Since it’s two on one, we won’t try to take advantage of you!”
“If it’s a wager you want, then I guess I’ll have to gamble a bit!” Bai Xiaochun said, clasping his hands behind his back and emphasizing his words with a cold harrumph. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter that Sun Yifan and Sima Tao were Nascent Soul cultivators. Bai Xiaochun had a Heaven-Dao Nascent Soul, and had defeated over a hundred top chosen. He had even come out victorious over the half-deva Junior Champion King. Considering all that, these two necromancers shouldn’t be a problem at all.
Just as he was contemplating whether or not to drive them away, Sima Tao apparently realized what he was thinking. If this Bai Hao wasn’t already a legend for his bravery and ferocity, Sima Tao would have simply challenged him to a fight, instead of bringing up the matter of flame conjuring. But now that he could tell that Bai Xiaochun was contemplating escalating things to outright fighting, he knew he had to do something.
“Bai Hao, you’re a Nascent Soul necromancer, and a famous one at that. If you try to beat us up, we might not be able to fight back. But resorting to violence will only delay things today. And there will always be a tomorrow! Even if you don’t agree to our challenge today, we’ll come back a second time!” Sima Tao had experienced a stroke of inspiration due to his nervousness, and it immediately caused Bai Xiaochun to frown.
“Fine, Bai Hao,” Sun Yifan jumped in, “I’ll also put up 1,000,000,000 vengeful souls! If you win, you can have them all!” Obviously, Sun Yifan had also realized that Bai Xiaochun wasn't completely confident when it came to flame conjuring, and that it was important to force him into the challenge no matter what!
Sun Yifan had thought his plan out well. He knew that if he caused a big enough scene, and attracted enough attention, then if Bai Hao wanted to continue to do business in Arch-Emperor City, he would have to take the challenge seriously.
And when it came to attracting attention from an audience, the best way to do it was offer huge stakes in a bet. It was exactly the same thing that had happened with Chen Xiao.
And that was why he offered up 1,000,000,000 vengeful souls!
As expected, his words caused an immediate stir. After all, 1,000,000,000 vengeful souls was a mind-boggling number. It was the same number that had propelled Bai Xiaochun to the rank of major general back on the Great Wall. Even the true spirit back there had been completely shocked and moved by that number.
“Another shocking wager is taking place because of Bai Hao's shop. Last time it was 800,000,000 portions of soul medicine, and this time it’s 1,000,000,000 vengeful souls!!”
“This is monumental!” There was already a clamor of conversation, and many people were excitedly taking out jade slips to send message to their friends.
Meanwhile, Sima Tao realized what Sun Yifan was thinking. Gritting his teeth, he said, “I’ll also throw in 1,000,000,000 vengeful souls!”
His words only served to throw oil onto the fire; numerous cries of astonishment could be heard erupting from the crowd.
“Heavens! Another 1,000,000,000!?!?”
“That’s 2,000,000,000 vengeful souls! That number… is staggering to even think about!!”
“This goes way past the 800,000,000 portions of soul medicine. Hurry, this news is priceless! We have to spread word!” More and more soul cultivators began sending messages to friends, and it didn’t take long before all of Borough 89 was shaken. Other surrounding boroughs were similarly affected. By this point, Bai Xiaochun’s neighborhood, which had once been a relatively remote and out-of-the-way location, was now getting packed with excited crowds.
When Bai Xiaochun looked around and saw that people were rushing into the area from all over, he suddenly felt a lot of pressure, and his eyes even turned a bit bloodshot. Looking back at Sima Tao and Sun Yifan, he realized that he had been backed into a corner. If he didn’t accept the wager, then these two would be free to spread rumors about him tampering with their soul medicine, which would get the whole city mad at him.
“Alright,” he said through gritted teeth. “How are we going to do this?”
Sima Tao chuckled coldly in his heart at how they had forced Bai Xiaochun’s hand. Voice tranquil, he said, “We’ll set a certain type of flame, and a time limit. Whoever can conjure the most during that time will be the winner. Brother Sun. Bai Hao. What do you think?”
Generally speaking, there were two main types of competitions that would occur between necromancers. One was to see who could conjure the flame with the most colors, the other was to see who could conjure more flame in a given time period.
The first type would show what overall level the necromancers had achieved, and the second would show how skilled they were in it.