DiploNovel #284 - Dinghaizhu
#284 - Dinghaizhu
If there was an opportunity to safely and discreetly eliminate Zhang Xiaohua, Zhang Chen would definitely not mind taking action and scheming.
"This matter requires careful planning. At a critical moment, we must deliver a fatal blow to Zhang Xiaohua. It's all or nothing. If we succeed, Zhang Xiaohua will vanish into thin air and become a thing of the past. If we fail, I'm afraid I won't be able to stay in the Yellow Sky Dao. Of course, the most crucial thing is to find a way to remove all traces of myself, so that the Yellow Sky Dao doesn't have a chance to notice. For me, the most important thing is to hide and absorb incense and faith within the Yellow Sky Dao," Zhang Chen constantly reminded himself.
Whether it's plotting against Zhang Xiaohua or helping Xie Lingyun, they are just incidental. His main goal is to lie low in the Taoist temple, steal the achievements of the Yellow Sky Dao, and devour the power of faith of the Yellow Sky Dao to improve his own skills.
When Zhang Chen returned to the Taoist temple, Xiao Dou Ding was cultivating. Zhang Chen stepped forward and woke Xiao Dou Ding up. Xiao Dou Ding glared at Zhang Chen with a face full of unwillingness: "Zhang Chen, do you know that disturbing others during their cultivation is the most annoying thing?"
"Yes, yes, yes, I am annoying, but I obtained an item that can assist in visualization cultivation. I originally wanted to give it to someone as cultivation resources, but since I am so annoying now, let's forget about it," Zhang Chen said casually.
"What? You have a treasure that assists cultivation?" Xiao Dou Ding's eyes widened upon hearing this, and she immediately jumped off the bed and pounced on Zhang Chen, hanging on Zhang Chen's shoulders like a koala: "Zhang Chen, are you telling the truth or a lie?"
"Of course it's a lie," Zhang Chen teased the child with a smile.
Xiao Dou Ding didn't believe it, hugging Zhang Chen's neck and shaking him vigorously, acting spoiled, giving Zhang Chen the feeling of holding a daughter. His heart was about to melt, and he quickly said: "Okay, okay, you come down first, and I will give you the treasure."
Xiao Dou Ding obediently jumped down upon hearing this, and then Zhang Chen took out a prepared bottle of Yellow Spring Water from his sleeve and said to Xiao Dou Ding: "This thing is called Yellow Spring Water, it is extremely precious. After you get it, make good use of it, but don't reveal it, lest it attract a fatal disaster."
Xiao Dou Ding was a sensible child. Upon hearing this, she carefully took the clean bottle, and then looked at Zhang Chen expectantly: "How do I use this?"
"One drop each time," Zhang Chen said.
Xiao Dou Ding immediately hugged the clean bottle and returned to her room upstairs: "I won't eat dinner, and don't disturb me during lunch either."
Watching Xiao Dou Ding run away, Zhang Chen shook his head and walked to the bed to take out the golden talisman.
Looking down at the golden talisman in his hand, he saw that the golden talisman was golden yellow, woven with fine gold threads, and both ends were made of delicate scrolls made of pure gold.
Zhang Chen was very satisfied with the golden talisman. Next, he had to use mana to refine it. If it were in the past, Zhang Chen would have to refine it for ten or eight years before this thing could become a magic weapon, but now that he has the power of incense to assist him, he can restore mana at any time. For him, refining this thing would only take three to five days.
It's just that refining the Six-Syllable Mantra Talisman will delay the advancement time of the Water-Fixing Talisman again. After hesitating slightly, Zhang Chen still chose to postpone the refining of the Six-Syllable Mantra Talisman.
Xiao Dou Ding is not short of this ten days or half a month, but the time for the Taoist temple competition is undecided, and the time for conferring the title of Water God is also undecided, and it may start at any time, so for him, the most important thing is to refine the Water-Fixing Talisman first.
Afterwards, Zhang Chen quickly thought of an inspiration: "The secret room in the underground space is refined with divine power. If I devour the divine power of the underground secret room..."
Zhang Chen's heart fluttered. If he absorbed the divine power of the underground secret room during the day, and absorbed the divine power of the sculpture at night, wouldn't that mean he could get two million points a day?
Not to mention refining the Water-Fixing Talisman, even refining the Six-Syllable Mantra Talisman would not be delayed.
The only thing to worry about is whether the divine power of the underground secret room is enough for him to devour.
But after all, people have to have dreams. What if it succeeds?
"If I want to absorb divine power underground, I need to manifest my true form underground. But the underground is full of rocks and sand, I still need to open up a space for my body to use," Zhang Chen secretly calculated and deduced. The next moment, the Penetration Technique was activated again, sneaking all the way underground. According to the position in his last memory, he found the secret room wrapped in incense divine power not long after.
It's just that the secret room is surrounded by rocks, and it is not easy to open up a space.
Even if Zhang Chen masters the Water Control Technique, he cannot squeeze out the underground space out of thin air because the underground rocks are extremely hard.
Fortunately, Zhang Chen is worthy of being Zhang Chen, and he set his sights on his own Beast Control Technique. His Water Control Technique cannot squeeze rocks, but he can use the Beast Control Technique to dig?
There is no shortage of pangolins in this world.
"At least ten pangolins are needed, and then the pangolins are asked to work day and night in three shifts, so that they can dig to the underground at the fastest speed," Zhang Chen had an idea in his mind, so he used the Penetration Technique to go down the mountain again to find pangolins.
It was not difficult for Zhang Chen to find pangolins. As soon as the Beast Control Technique was activated, all the beasts within a radius of two kilometers were reflected in Zhang Chen's perception. Zhang Chen searched in the mountains for half a day and had already harvested ten pangolins.
Then Zhang Chen measured the position and began to arrange for the pangolins to start work.
Ten pangolins worked tirelessly day and night in three shifts, but in just one day, they had already dug three hundred meters, digging from outside the Taoist temple to the secret room at the foot of the mountain, and then opened up a space of two meters in size outside the wall of the secret room.
Then Zhang Chen rewarded the pangolins with a meal of roe deer meat before letting the ten pangolins go.
It was already night at this time. Zhang Chen carried a bucket to the main hall to work, continuing to steal the power of incense.
Zhang Chen subconsciously looked at the jade talisman in the mouth of the sculpture, and saw that the jade talisman was also devouring the power of faith. The speed at which the other party devoured the power of incense was much faster than his own.
"What exactly does the Pingbian Royal Mansion want to do? Are they not afraid of angering the Yellow Sky Dao?" Zhang Chen was a little puzzled. Logically speaking, the Pingbian Royal Mansion and the Yellow Sky Dao are allied, so there is no need to use such small tricks, right?
However, this is not Zhang Chen's business, but he can absorb it boldly, because even if something happens, he can shirk the responsibility to the Pingbian Royal Mansion.
One million points were earned overnight. Zhang Chen quietly left when the morning class bell rang, and then finished the morning class in the crowd, and then quietly came to the wall of the underground secret room, looking at the divine power flowing on the wall of the underground secret room with a pair of eyes: "I don't know if this divine power is fixed, there is only so much quantity, or it is constantly added. It should be constantly added, right? After all, divine power will disappear with the passage of time. If there is no constant supply of divine power, it will not be able to last."
“What's going on? Wouldn't we know if we tried?” Zhang Chen extended the innate mosquito proboscis from his palm and directly pierced it into the divine power within the wall. Then, Zhang Chen began to devour it without hesitation.
Swallow ~
Swallow ~
As Zhang Chen devoured, the divine power on the wall began to flow, like flowing water. As Zhang Chen took a sip, the flowing water would naturally replenish it.
Seeing this, Zhang Chen relaxed: "As expected, there is a constant blessing of the power of faith. In that case, I can absorb it with peace of mind."
Thinking of this, Zhang Chen stroked his chin and pondered: "That's not right. If that's the case, why would I wipe the statues? Wouldn't it be better to just devour it underground?"
“I'll tell Little Bean Sprout when I get back to abandon the work of wiping the main hall. I just want to devour the power of faith, I don’t want to work.” Zhang Chen muttered to himself.
Zhang Chen devoured like a whale for two hours, and as he devoured, divine power continuously flowed from afar to replenish it. Zhang Chen completely let himself go.
When Zhang Chen felt that the time was almost up, he quietly returned to the courtyard and saw Little Bean Sprout practicing martial arts.
“Senior Sister, I still have something to ask of you.” Zhang Chen waved to Little Bean Sprout.
“What's the matter, kid?” Little Bean Sprout stopped practicing, turned around to look at Zhang Chen, and a hint of curiosity appeared in her eyes.
“Reject the work of wiping the main hall for me and tell that unlucky guy to report to Daoguan and arrange for someone else to replace him.” Zhang Chen said to Little Bean Sprout.
Little Bean Sprout glanced at Zhang Chen with a surprised expression, but she didn't say much. Instead, she said with a smile: "Small matter! Small matter! I'll arrange it for you tonight."
After speaking, Little Bean Sprout ran out of the courtyard in a hurry. Seeing this, Zhang Chen secretly smiled. After all, she still had the heart of a little girl. Although her soul had left her body, her mind was unstable.
Seeing that the matter was settled, Zhang Chen didn't delay any longer, turned around and quietly sneaked back underground to continue devouring the power of incense and divine power. For him, every minute and every second of delay was skill points.
Time passed quickly. Originally, it would take Zhang Chen eight days to upgrade the Water Fixing Talisman and collect eight million points, but after Zhang Chen stole incense points day and night and lost the constraints of time, Zhang Chen devoured wantonly. In just three and a half days, he had collected enough points needed for the upgrade.
Inside the underground space, Zhang Chen looked at his golden finger panel:
【14 Skills (Twelfth Level): Water Fixing Talisman (0 / 8011200)】
【Points: 8012000】
“Upgrade.”
Without even thinking about it, Zhang Chen clicked on it directly. The next moment, he saw the points instantly evaporate, and then the skill panel exploded with a bang, turning into countless snowflakes. Then, the snowflakes turned into countless dense rune order chains and reorganized. After a full quarter of an hour, the skill on the golden finger panel appeared:
【14 Skills: Sea Fixing Pearl】
【Note: Can fix the origin of water】
A simple introduction, but it made Zhang Chen's scalp tingle. The fewer the words, the more information there was.
What is the origin of water?
Anything that can be called the origin is definitely not a simple thing.
“Good stuff! This is really good stuff.” Zhang Chen looked at the golden finger panel. At this time, the Sea Fixing Pearl was no longer a text introduction, but a cyan bead.
The bead was cyan, the size of a chicken egg, and looked magnificent.
However, he didn't dare to take out this Sea Fixing Pearl for testing. If the Sea Fixing Pearl caused any strange phenomena and was noticed by the Yellow Heaven Dao, and they had means to deal with the layout in advance, it would not be good news for him.
“This pearl was obtained through hard work. It can be regarded as fulfilling a knot in my heart. No matter what changes happen in the upcoming conferral ceremony, with this Sea Fixing Pearl, I can have the hope of making a comeback.” Zhang Chen relaxed, then turned his head to look at the secret room in front of him. He saw the divine power flowing on the walls of the secret room, and there was still no sign of any weakening of the power of incense.
“That's not right. Although the power of incense on this wall has not decreased, and there is still a constant stream of faith power replenishing it from all directions, it seems that the luster has dimmed.” Zhang Chen still noticed the changes in the wall in front of him.
At this time, Zhang Chen raised his vigilance in his heart: "Strange, why is this happening?"
“But I have no choice now. Even if there are changes, I have to absorb it. For me, the fastest way to accumulate experience points is to absorb the incense and faith. With such a big benefit in front of me, how can I bear it?”
Zhang Chen muttered and stretched his sinful hand towards the power of faith again, starting to devour like a whale.
Inside the secret room next door, Gu Mingyue and Wu Changming stood in front of the pool and saw that the pool in front of them was about two meters in size, with golden water flowing inside. At this time, around the pool, there were four springs that spewed out yellow water and poured into the pool.
“Strange!” Suddenly, Gu Mingyue stared at the pool and said.
“What's wrong?” Wu Changming, who was beside him, heard this and came forward with a puzzled look.
“Look at the pool water. Has it dropped by two points compared to seven days ago?” Gu Mingyue pointed to the golden water in the pool and said.
“No way?” Wu Changming's smile disappeared when he heard this, and his expression suddenly became serious.
The two carefully watched the water flow in the pool, and sure enough, it had dropped by a few points compared to seven days ago.
Wu Changming gasped when he heard this: "How is it possible! The preaching down the mountain is in full swing, so why is the accumulated power of faith not decreasing but increasing, resulting in negative growth?"
This was simply impossible, but it happened.
Negative growth?
It was simply ghostly.
If the power of incense here showed negative growth, what were the disciples down the mountain collecting?
The collected incense actually showed negative growth? What a joke! Not only did they not collect the power of faith, but they also lost money? There's no such thing!
“Could it be that someone has recently mobilized the power of incense to fight with others? Or is it that the Great Virtuous Teacher is drawing a large amount of the power of faith for cultivation? Could it be that the master is about to break through?” A hint of excitement appeared in Gu Mingyue's eyes.
If the Great Virtuous Teacher broke through, his strength would reach a higher level, which would definitely rewrite the situation in the world.
The general trend of the world will be rewritten! This Great Victory Dynasty is not impossible to overthrow. At that time, the footsteps of the Yellow Heaven Dao will be accelerated infinitely.
“Send a message to inquire and see if there is a problem with the master.” Wu Changming said.
“The master said that this pool must be filled before the Conferred God Grand Ceremony can be started. Now that the pool water for accumulating faith has a flaw, it must be investigated to the end. Whether there is a problem with preaching down the mountain, or someone has recently fought with others and drawn away the incense and faith, affecting the progress of the conferral, it must be investigated and explained to the stewards in the sect.” Wu Changming said.