Chapter 185: Long Road Ahead

"Ah, master. You see, I'm trying to get those annoying elders to understand your greatness. They need to be aware of your abilities, so they can accept their inferiority and worship you as their lord."

Cao Mao raised an eyebrow, "Huh? What?"

"I also told them about your time-and-space distortion abilities and what you have been doing in this space, master."

"YOU, WHAT!?" Cao Mao was enraged. He seized Ju Chen's neck and squeezed it, "YOU INGRATE! I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL THEM!! WAS MY WORDS A DOG SHIT!? I WENT THROUGH ALL THE TROUBLE TO SAVE YOUR ASS FROM THAT HELL HOLE!! IS THIS HOW YOU REPAY MY KINDNESS!?"

"M-Master... I can't ... breathe..."

Cao Mao snorted and tossed her aside. He also summoned the yin slave menu, preparing to erase all her traits and personality, "Speak! Tell me everything or I'll delete your freewill forever!"

Realizing that she had overstepped Cao Mao's authority, Ju Chen knelt and kowtowed, slamming her forehead on the space floor, "I'm sorry. I thought if my family and Jia Shan were to know of your abilities, they could have pledged allegiance to you!"

Ju Chen revealed everything she had been doing.

After she had regained her senses, she told all elders about Cao Mao's secret abilities. However, she did not tell them about the system or Cao Mao's martial techniques. She led them to think that he was under the protection of a strong dao god so that Jia Wenhe and others wouldn't force him to worship other dao gods.

"Are you telling the truth?"

As Cao Mao was saying that, he edited Ju Chen's trait again. He added a life goal with a description, [Never lies to Mao Miaomiao].

Ju Chen's body shook as the system rewrote her personality once more. A minute later, she rubbed her nose to stop the nose bleeding. She gazed into the eyes of Cao Mao.

"Yes. I'm working to make my parents and my grandmother submit to you."

"..."

Cao Mao bit his lower lips and scratched his head, having a headache.

By now, dao gods might have learned about his abilities, and their servants in the mortal world probably got this intel by now, which might complicate things in the future.

Still, since dao gods were observing him from god-knows-where and they could give out system quests, they probably already knew about his abilities and the system cheats.

Ding

[Incorrect. Dao gods can see your every action in the mortal world, but they cannot see your actions in the Isolation Training Space.]

[Your sponsor wants to give you a piece of good news. Even if the dao gods are aware of your abilities, they are barred from leaking this information to the mortal world due to a certain contract.]

[In other words, you don't need to worry about their influence. At best, they will either send someone to interfere with your missions. But if they do, your sponsor will give them a good bonk.]

[Your sponsor brags that he is much stronger than ordinary dao gods. Please rely on him.]

[If better, you can sign a contract and become his vessel. Then, you can get your dream-like lifestyle without having to hunt pesky protagonists. He also stresses that he never lies.]

"..."

It was a surprising revelation by the system, yet again. At the same time, it was suspicious.

Cao Mao dismissed the system messages and menus as he didn't believe in this information. If the system sponsor was so omnipotent to the point that he could bestow martial skills, magic skills, or various techniques to someone in the mortal world, why did he have to go through all the trouble and gave him quests and skills? What was his purpose?

Ding

[Your sponsor wants entertainment.]

"Bullshit. I don't believe you."

[Suit yourself.]

"..."

Cao Mao rolled his eyes. He closed all system screens and turned to Ju Chen, "Haiz. Fine. I forgive you. But you still have a lot to repent for not consulting me first."

Ju Chen's eyes brightened. She gave Cao Mao a sweet smile, "Yes, master. Please punish me!"

"You sounded like Kang Yan. Oh well, I'm lazy today. Get on top of me. I won't move."

.

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Next morning

The sky was dark today. Dark rain clouds covered the sun, and no sunlight could go through.

As if it was night time, neon lights, torches, lanterns, and various light sources illuminated colorful light in the city. A thousand cultivators on the streets were minding their businesses as usual.

Cao Mao looked outside through the window. He gazed at the dark cloud, "Come to think of it, I didn't get any tribulation when I broke through. Is the dark cloud my tribulation thingy?"

Ding

[Yes. When you were asleep, the dark cloud manifested, and it tried to kill you.]

[The Qiang Clan dispatched their experts to erect an emergency array to cover the entire city. They defended against the attack and chased the heaven eye away.]

[Since this tribulation has been interrupted, the next tribulation will be twice more difficult. Please be prepared.]

Cao Mao's jaw dropped. He was unsure if his plot armor was at work or not, but he took a mental note to not advance his cultivation base during his sleep.

"When will I get the next tribulation?"

[When you successfully form an essence river.]

"And how many liters of essence water do I need this time?"

[Ten million liters at the minimum.]

Cao Mao sweated profusely. His brain.exe also stopped working.

He used his hands to count how many times he had to dual-cultivate to get enough energy to breakthrough. Of course, his hands wouldn't be enough.

"Just curious, before I get to the fifth-stage, how many liters of the essence do I need?"

[You need to form at least 7 seas of life essence. Each sea must contain at least a billion liters. However, it is recommended to have at least ten billion liters of life essence per sea.]

Poof!

White smoke came out from Cao Mao's ears. His brain went short-circuited, and it froze.

Five minutes later, Cao Mao managed to calm down. He glared at the system screen with bloodshot eyes, "There's no fucking way that I can dual-cultivate my way to the fifth-stage! My dick is gonna die first!"

[Who tells you to blindly dual-cultivate without searching for proper cultivation resources?]

Cao Mao's face became a pokerface meme again.

Annoyed, frustrated, and mentally exhausted, he closed all screens and pretended that he didn't see or read anything. He went back to the slum to get more refined stones.

.

.

Meanwhile

Siren City

Jia Wenhe and Ju Shoufen finally finished building their humble city walls. They were 10 meters tall, and their lengths were 4 km by 3 km. Moreover, the two alchemists used essence cores to fuel a grand array, which warded off evil spirits and impure Qi from entering the city.

Another array was set up behind the wall. It was another Qi filtering dome, which continuously cleaned and broke Qi strands into particles, suitable for children and the local population without Qi to absorb.

Now, Jia Shan and all children were safe from the extreme environment.

"We're done here."

"Yeah, what's next, Wenhe?"

Jia Wenhe picked up his phone and checked the unread messages from Cao Mao. The latter had a lot of questions regarding their fund and the loot from the dead cultivators, who came for Cao Mao during the previous tribulation.

Currently, Jia Wenhe was in charge of the group's cash. Most of the spatial rings of dead cultivators were in his hands, but Cao Mao hid a few rings to himself.

"Give me a second to think. Bah! This brat wants to borrow our money."

Ju Shoufen was curious. She looked at Jia Wenhe's phone, "What does he say?"

"Here," Jia Wenhe passed his phone to Ju Shoufen. "He said a grand auction is going to happen in 3 weeks or so. He wants essence cores to auction for something."

"Pfft! I bet he runs into a pretty local girl and he wants to buy her pussy!"

Jia Wenhe laughed, but he shook his head, "Nah. If I remember correctly, the HQ of the top merchant guild of our continent is somewhere in the Qiang Clan's territory. I think that brat is telling us the truth."

"Oh, really?" Ju Shoufen fell into deep thought. She recalled that they still needed blank talisman papers to set up defensive arrays against thieves or intruders. She needed to buy something from a city as well, "Should we join the auction?"

"Someone has to stay behind and guard the babies. Well, if you want to, you can go."

"Hahaha! It's been a while since I last joined an auction. Do you have that brat's phone number? I'll go see him."

"Don't bully him, okay?"

"Hahaha!"

After Ju Shoufen had gotten the phone number, she visited Ju Chen. The elder brought her granddaughter along so that she could widen her horizons.

Ju Shoufen also texted Cao Mao.

"I and my granddaughter will join that auction event. Where are you?"

Soon, Cao Mao texted back.

[I have a business at a slum. I'm too busy right now.]

.

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Late Morning

Cao Mao returned to the slum and rented the same stall to sell more pills.

Because of the pill circulation yesterday, many people learned about the new shop through words of mouth. Many rich horny men and thugs formed lines, queuing to buy Cao Mao's sex pills.

The Qiang Clan also opened their stalls and sold the same pills that Cao Mao had gifted them. As a result, half of Cao Mao's potential customers went to the other side.

Cao Mao didn't mind the competition since he had more stocks than his rivals.

At noon, the Qiang Clan ran out of orc strength pills to sell. As their supplies were limited, they closed their stalls early.

On the other hand, Cao Mao's stock was endless. Even though some of the customers bought in bulk, he still had enough to sell everyone, who bought only one or two pills.

Unfortunately, not all pedestrians had enough cash to buy a sex pill. Smart cultivators chose to save their precious refined stones to exchange something more useful while the poor could only gaze at the buyers in envy.

After selling 3,000 more pills, the business slowed down. No one queue to buy Cao Mao's orc strength pills anymore.

Cao Mao sighed as he guessed that the market booming period had ended. He collected everything and left only 3 bottles of orc strength pills on the stall. Then, he put new items on the table.

They were low-grade, medium-grade, and high-grade weapons, which Cao Mao had looted from the abandoned mine. Some of them were from dead cultivators who came to steal his tribulation rewards.

Not many cultivators paid attention to Cao Mao's stall this time since weapon shops were common in the slum. However, poor cultivators stopped and browsed through the items in curiosity.

"How much is this?"

A youth with the cultivation strength of muscle tampering realm picked a high-grade dagger and admired it. He asked for a price, but he did not have enough money to buy the item.

He was simply window-shopping.

"Ah that," Cao Mao gazed into the face of the weak cultivator. The latter had a bitter smile on his face, revealing his emotion that he was ready to be disappointed.

At first, Cao Mao placed these items to blend in the environment while he was thinking about what he should sell next. However, after looking at this man's face, he had an idea.

"Weapons are not for sale."

"What!?" The youth was taken aback. He shouted in anger, "Then, why are you placing on the stall in the first place!?"

Cao Mao grinned, "I'm trading these items for something else."

The youth's face changed. He was interested as he might have a chance to get something in this barter trade, "Oh? What are you looking for?"

Cao Mao spoke in a loud voice so all poor cultivators could hear it, "I've heard that this city is rich in natural herbs. I need you to gather these herbs from the wild. If you manage to get at least 200 catties of any herb in this list, I'll give you a low-grade weapon, 1,000 catties for a mid-grade weapon, and 5,000 catties for a high-grade weapon. Easy, right?"

Cao Mao wrote a wooden plank and described the exchange rate for these items, including the items that he was looking for.

Passing by cultivators stopped to look at the new signboard. When they realized that they could exchange herbs for weaponry, they flocked to the stall to see what they could get in return.

Rich cultivators only glanced at the pile of weapons. Then, they lost interest.

But for poor cultivators and weak cultivators, they could only dream about getting a proper magical weapon. When they realized that they could work to get one of these items, they got excited.

They were so excited to the point that they didn't realize the real value of these herbs.

"I'll go fetch these herbs for you! Please wait for me!"

"I'll go, too! Don't sell it!"

"Me, three!"