Chapter 1601: The Moment He Made A Move, His Opponent Would Lose
After sending Lin Xin and Lin Xuan off, Lin Huang sat alone in the courtyard and checked on the status of his Monster Cards.
It had been close to five months since he had released his imperial monsters to obtain their own cultivation resources. Since then, he had practically never reviewed Bai and the others' cultivation progress.
Now that he finally had time, he began to check through the cards one by one.
The first Monster Card he saw was Kylie's. She was already at Pure Spirit rank-6 and was, without a doubt, the strongest powerhouse among all the imperial monsters.
Four months ago or so, Kylie had already elevated to heavenly god-level. Now, in just these four short months, her combat strength had gone up to sixth-rank heavenly god-level.
This sort of advancement speed could practically be considered terrifying.
Lin Huang's combat strength elevation was already rapid enough, but in the past five months, he had merely elevated from sixth-rank to tenth-rank. Furthermore, he had elevated to sixth-rank before Kylie went into closed-door cultivation for advancement to heavenly god-level.
However, he felt at ease again after doing some careful thinking about it.
Kylie was already Pure Spirit rank-6. She also had the full support of a top grade-6 organization—the Nephilic Judge Tribe.
If she needed any cultivation resources, she only had to ask.
After all, the abilities of a Pure Spirit rank-6 ninth-rank Heavenly God could at least compare with those of a half-step Lord and might even, in fact, be more powerful.
As for any concerns about a weak cultivation foundation, such a problem did not exist for a Pure Spirit rank-6 being.
If a being were inherently Pure Spirit rank-6, they would be born as a lord-level living being.
Although Kylie had only elevated after birth, she did not need any sort of foundation before she advanced to become a Lord. At most, she merely needed some actual combat experience to familiarize herself with the exponential increase in various aspects that had resulted from her rapid rise in combat strength.
Lin Huang was extremely satisfied with Kylie's improvement.
"At the rate she's going, this girl will elevate to ninth-rank within three months at most..."
After reviewing Kylie's information, Lin Huang then turned his attention to Bloody's.
As expected, Bloody's combat strength had soared as well. She had now elevated to fifth-rank heavenly god-level.
Obviously, she had benefitted from associating with Kylie.
Her combat strength elevation most likely had been achieved through the Nephilic Judge Tribe's resources.
As Kylie's best friend, at present, Bloody was probably being treated like a princess as well by the Nephilic Judge Tribe.
Lin Huang was not worried that something would go wrong with Bloody's foundation. After all, she had elevated to supreme god-level rank-5. (TN: We believe the author may have made an error since it is mentioned earlier that Bloody has elevated to fifth-rank heavenly god-level, but we have chosen to translate it as written.)
All she needed to do was to strengthen her foundation a little when she got to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.
Once he had checked out Bloody's progress, Lin Huang looked at the other imperial monsters who were supreme god-level rank-5.
The three supreme god-level rank-5 imperial monsters—Killer, Blackscale (Symbiotic Creature of the Abyssal Fountain), and Ku Rong (Demonic Buddhist Holy Son)—had elevated to fourth-rank heavenly god-level.
This did not surprise Lin Huang. The three of them were already heavenly god-level even before he released them. Furthermore, they had teamed up when they were given the freedom to choose their own teammates. Since all three of them were class-5, their combat strength was heavenly god-level as well. This meant that their abilities far exceeded that of the other imperial monsters, so they were unable to team up with the rest.
As expected, once they had formed a group, their improvement over the last few months was very evident.
After he had checked on the progress of Killer's group, Lin Huang then looked over Bai and Teng Ran.
Since Bai and Teng Ran had been class-4.5 at the time, they spent a month elevating to supreme god-level rank-5 after Lin Huang had used the Advance Cards on them. Therefore, the two had to hunt for resources a month later than the other imperial monsters.
Nevertheless, Bai and Teng Ran had also advanced to fourth-rank heavenly god-level, which meant they had caught up with Killer's group in terms of progress.
There was no need to say anything about Teng Ran. He had already been first-rank heavenly god-level before elevating to supreme god-level.
(TN: We also believe that the author might have made an error here with the levels, given that supreme god-level has already been established as lower in rank than heavenly god-level.
However, we have opted to translate it as it, out of respect for the author.)
However, Bai was truly something else. Before elevating to supreme god-level, he had only been ninth-rank true god-level. (TN: As with the above paragraph, we believe that the author may have made an error in the order of the levels. Again, we have chosen to translate it as written.)
In other words, he had used less than four months to level up through five ranks of combat strength. This included advancing by a full level.
Lin Huang could almost imagine how much work Bai had put in to catch up with Kylie and the rest over the past few months.
After turning his attention from Bai's card, Lin Huang then checked on Grimace, whose combat strength was second only to Bai's.
"This fellow..." Lin Huang was stunned when he saw Grimace's card.
He was shocked that Grimace had already elevated to class-4.5.
He cast his mind back carefully and recalled that the three of them had teamed up during that time.
It seemed as if they had managed to encounter some great stroke of fortune, for their rankings all to elevate by half a class.
Moreover, the elevation of all three's combat strength was by no means slower than Bai's progress. They had all advanced to third-rank heavenly god-level. One must know that five months ago, they were only seventh-rank and eighth-rank true god-level. They had not even reached ninth-rank yet.
The ones who had elevated just as rapidly were several of the Bug Tribe Queen Mothers.
Just like Grimace and the other two, they had elevated to third-rank heavenly god-level.
However, Lin Huang was not that surprised at the Bug Tribe Queen Mothers' advancement.
They had an entire tribe of bugs to support them.
Furthermore, apart from the Queen Mothers, several of the Bug Kings had elevated to second-rank as well. There were even a thousand-over bug beasts that had elevated to heavenly god-level.
This number far surpassed Lin Huang's expectations.
After looking over the bug beasts' progress, Lin Huang then turned his attention to the remaining imperial monsters.
Although Tyrant, Thunder, and Witch had not elevated as rapidly as Grimace, Bai, and the others, their progress was not too shabby either. They had steadily advanced to heavenly god-level.
Lin Huang was beyond satisfied with the progress of his imperial monsters' cultivation.
Although Kylie, Bai, and the rest could not participate in battles of his level at the moment, given their progress, they would not take long to elevate to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.
When the time came, sooner or later, they would become his most powerful assistants.
The imperial monsters still needed time to develop, but it was not as if Lin Huang did not have subordinates he could utilize.
Since elevating to tenth-rank true god-level, almost all of his Sword Servants' combat strength had been fully unsealed. They had been completely restored to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.
Apart from Swords 1 to 10, whom he could not utilize just yet, he had a total of over three hundred Sword Servants.
All of these three hundred and fifty-eight Sword Servants were ninth-rank heavenly god-level.
Not only that, there were even twenty-five class-4.5 powerhouses and two class-5 powerhouses among them.
Sword11 and Sword12 were the two class-5 powerhouses. In the great world, their abilities would certainly rank right at the top. In fact, they might be second only to peak powerhouses like Buried Heaven.
Lin Huang reviewed his own abilities as well. Without the use of a trump card, he might just be on the same level as Sword11 and Sword12.
There was still a fine line between himself and the ultimate Heavenly God powerhouses like Sword1 and Buried Heaven.
In reality, such power was already enough to dominate all the grade-5 organizations in the entire great world.
However, this was not sufficient for Lin Huang.
The more powerful he became, the more he realized how terrifying half-step lord-level and lord-level powerhouses were. He was also more fearful of the Raider organization.
Lin Huang had never been a coward, nor had he ever been intimidated by any of his opponents. However, it was his habit to properly prepare before making a move against his enemies, even outclassing them if possible. When he felt the time was ripe, he would even take the initiative to attack, annihilating his opponents.
However, if he were not sufficiently powerful, he would lie low patiently, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
Just like in a game of Go chess, the moment he made a move, his opponent would lose!