Starting Cultivation in Wasteland

Chapter 925 - 793: Stunned

Bentley’s warning forced the Military reinforcements to seriously consider the consequences.That fleeting window of opportunity was seized by the four of them, and they used it to quickly pull out of the battlefield.

Honestly, when it came to running for their lives, these four were absolutely no slouches.

Don’t even mention the Supreme and the two A-levels; even the weakest in terms of cultivation level, Flower Scorpion, was herself a Wind Attribute B-level.

After this battle, the Paranoid’s evaluation of Bentley and the others changed drastically.

"Their combat strength is a bit lacking, but their sense of teamwork is solid. At least I don’t have to waste time cleaning up the battlefield!"

The one who cleaned up the battlefield was Flower Scorpion, the one who took away Supreme No. 2’s head was Xiang Xue, who, as a Water Attribute A-level, was also in charge of early warning.

Bentley was rated rather low, even though he had the rare Electromagnetic Attribute and played a crucial role in the fight.

Because in the Paranoid’s eyes, Bentley was just relying on his weapon’s power: "Give me that thing and I could pretend to be an Electromagnetic Supreme more convincingly than him."

Bentley didn’t bother arguing with him—everyone basically had a clear grasp of this guy’s rotten personality by now.

That night, no one came to verify their identities; it was obvious that these two battles had been way too fierce.

In fact, the Central Government of Star No. 2 really had been scared; we’re talking about three Supremes, slaughtered in a single night.

Taylor’s luck wasn’t actually that bad; although a good chunk of him had calcified, there was still some hope of saving him.

The Antidote to this kind of poison was currently being developed by the Imperial authorities, and they had already made decent progress.

This time they’d gotten lucky—an actual Supreme had been hit. Targets of this level of convergence were usually impossible to come by.

Awakened being used as test subjects wasn’t exactly rare in the Imperial domain—in many cases it could even be called "atonement."

But using a Supreme as a test subject, and with such a vicious poison at that—just thinking about doing such a thing was a sin in itself.

So Taylor, as a test subject, was extremely rare and precious.

What he went through afterward doesn’t need to be spelled out; he hadn’t been a Supreme of Star No. 2 to begin with, and this time he’d just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What the Central Government of Star No. 2 was focused on was that the ones who caused these two massacres were the Panda Team, which had vanished for quite a while.

This team had been wanted for years now, and that was enough time for the Central Government of Star No. 2 to figure out what was really going on.

The whole thing had started because the Divine Text Association overreached. Taking down Hoyel was one thing, but they’d actually tried to wipe everyone out in one go.

Later, the Panda Team was exposed as having created Wood Attribute Poison, but that incident had basically been an accident.

At the end of the day, this was a personal grudge between the Divine Text Association and the Panda Team—at most you could add the Cyan Blade Commerce Association into the mix.

The Central Government of Star No. 2 belonged to the orthodox Government system, and they were naturally not very fond of the Divine Text Association.

This organization was powerful—so powerful that most Planet Governments didn’t dare ignore it.

But when you strut around like that for long enough, you’re bound to make enemies.

Especially since, strictly speaking, this organization wasn’t even a formal Government body; it was just a research institute with a license.

If you’re a research institute, then focus on doing your research honestly. Now they were forming factions and acting so high-profile they’d forgotten their place.

The Government of Star No. 2 really didn’t want to cooperate with them, but couldn’t flatly refuse either, so they kept stalling with the excuse that they didn’t have enough Supremes.

But no matter what excuse you used, with something this big happening on the planet, having zero response was impossible.

Especially that battle in the valley—far too many people had seen it, and the key point was that those bystanders all had some status.

With that, trying to fully lock down the news was nearly impossible. This was a very serious public security incident.

The battle at the hotel next to the Military Region was actually easier to suppress in terms of public opinion, even though it was right next to a busy commercial district, where controlling speech should have been harder on paper.

First, it was right next to the Military Region, and as long as the Military stepped out to issue a denial, maintaining control wasn’t difficult.

Second, that area’s development depended on the Military, so there were many stakeholders, including a lot of relatives and friends of soldiers.

So the reaction to the latter could basically be ignored; the real pressure came from the former, forcing the Government to step in and search for suspects.

The manor where Qu Jianlei and the others were hiding wasn’t searched until the following evening, when a team finally showed up.

The ones who came were a small Military squad of only a dozen or so people, searching five or six homes at the same time.

Because some members of the squad stayed in the middle to provide backup, each household had at most two inspectors.

However, this squad carried a Life Detector, which could sense people who were Concealed.

This detector wasn’t the common mass-market type; according to the documentation, it could detect living humans up to a hundred meters underground.

Of course, that was just the marketing line. Whether it could actually find Awakened who were Concealing their aura was another matter entirely.

But precisely because these people had brought equipment, only three people showed themselves on Qu Jianlei’s side.

They were Granny Jia, Flower Scorpion, and Xiang Xue; Qu Jianlei, the Paranoid, and Bentley didn’t show their faces at all.

The Big Head Butterfly spun smugly above the Vortex. "If they weren’t using equipment, it’d be one thing. But using equipment... those guys are all newbies to me!"

The search team hurried past; this manor with only three people didn’t attract their attention in the slightest.

It was well known that the Imperial domain was vast and sparsely populated; a huge manor with only one gatekeeper was perfectly normal.

As for the fact that all three of them were women... that wasn’t a problem either. As long as one of them was an Awakened, who would dare look down on them?

Xiang Xue displayed a B-level Cultivation Level, Flower Scorpion was C-level, but... that was more than enough.

When the inspectors had gone far enough away, Flower Scorpion couldn’t help curling her lip. "Just this?"

"Don’t underestimate them," Granny Jia shook her head and spoke mildly.

"The Military is vicious as hell. It looks like we passed, but if they have any doubts... they might monitor us in secret."

Anyone familiar with the old lady would probably be utterly stunned seeing this scene.

The ever-arrogant Jia Shuqing, when did she become this easygoing?

In fact, the old lady really had adjusted her mindset ever since she got Panda’s promise.

Right, Qu Jianlei truly hadn’t said anything outright, but his hints were already more than enough.

From "first use Spiritual Qi to recover," to "we’ll talk about Breaking Through later," to "don’t let that Paranoid know"...

He hadn’t said he had Life-Extending Pills.

But Jia Shuqing hadn’t lived all these years for nothing; she knew very well that the other party likely had some Life-extending Treasure.

Taking a step back, even if he didn’t have any Life-extending Treasure, he still had what it took to give her another chance to冲击至高之上—wasn’t that enough?

She had already failed once in冲击, and had accumulated quite a bit of experience; she dreamed of getting one more chance.

And this time, it wasn’t just an opportunity for her to correct herself; she could also learn from other people’s experiences and lessons.

That crazy guy didn’t even need to be mentioned; he’d already reached above the Supreme, which at least meant he was qualified to give guidance.

And Panda was even more mysterious. Forget everything else—just being able to modify a Qi Gathering Array into a Spirit Gathering Array, is that something an ordinary person can do?

As for deeper reasons, she didn’t even dare think about them—there are some things where it’s genuinely better not to know than to know.

Hearing this, Flower Scorpion nodded. "True. Operating like this makes it easy to fool people... worthy of the Military, they’re too devious."

Devious... Granny Jia secretly curled her lip. Compared to your boss, the Military’s little tricks really don’t amount to much.

The day after the search, which was also the third day after the battle, a Starship descended inside Star No. 2’s Star Port.

Two women walked off the Starship—Xiao Qin and Claire. The Starship was the one they had seized from the Cyan Blade Commerce Association.

The timing of their arrival was just right; it could serve as indirect proof that the Rhodiola rosea team hadn’t taken part in the battle the day before yesterday.

Qu Jianlei, the Paranoid, Bentley, Flower Scorpion, and Xiang Xue had already slipped into the Star Port and came out together with the two of them.

Because of what had happened the previous night, the Star Port guards had tightened vigilance again, though the focus of inspection was still mainly on stowaways.

Qu Jianlei and the Paranoid were both skilled in Spiritual Power; covering for everyone to slip past the guards was absurdly easy.

As for the Star Port’s surveillance systems, those were naturally handled by Little Lake—no need to say more.

After the seven reunited, they once again started hanging around Green Water City, playing tourist.

Three days later, the Starship left, this time with one more person—Granny Jia, who had followed along using a fake identity.

The Starship’s next destination was Star No. 4, also a place where Qu Jianlei had spent quite some time in the past.

After arriving on Star No. 4, they were stunned to find that the Supreme in charge here from the Divine Text Association had already packed up and left.

They really couldn’t avoid leaving; what had happened on Star No. 2 was just too terrifying.

The Supreme who left should have gone to the Star of Hope. There had originally been two more Supremes from the Divine Text Association there; safer to huddle together.

However, Qu Jianlei and the others hadn’t come to Star No. 4 to deal with that Supreme.

With his current appetite, a mere Supreme no longer caught his eye; not enough to warrant special attention.

This trip to Star No. 4 was mainly to create an alibi—the goal was still to distance themselves from the incident.

After two days of sightseeing, they followed their usual routine and left Xiao Qin and Claire behind, while the others tried to use fake identities to head to the Star of Hope.

Although a major incident had happened on Star No. 2, Panda’s team came in so aggressively that the Divine Text Association had been beaten senseless.

For a time, they couldn’t make any decisive moves—the other factions had also been scared badly.

As a result, the Divine Text Association simply couldn’t gather enough High Tier Awakened to effectively seal off the whole Star Realm.

Star No. 4 was like this; by rights they should have been strictly checking for stowaways, but when the last remaining Supreme of the Divine Text Association had already run, who was going to push for it?

Only Star No. 2 was unlucky enough to be saddled with a major public security incident; they had no choice but to at least put on a show.

This time, Granny Jia showed her depth again—she easily found a fake-document dealer and had a batch of forgeries made.

It was hard to imagine that the dozing old lady from that District Library would have such powerful control over an entire Star Realm.

Right after that, everyone easily used their fake identities to buy tickets, while Qu Jianlei and the Paranoid, as usual, chose to stow away.

Nothing unexpected happened. After the jump, the Starship landed on the Star of Hope.

Qu Jianlei had just walked out of the Star Port when Little Lake reported, "The three Supremes of the Divine Text Association have joined forces with the Cyan Blade Commerce Association."

(Updated to here. Calling for monthly tickets, continued subscriptions, and recommendation tickets.)