Chapter 357: Motivation
"Azhen, quickly take a qi replenishing pill." Jiang Yue said.
In his excitement, he forgot that Yu Nianzhen exhausted all his qi to injure Duan Buzhi.
"Mmmh." Yu Nianzhen nodded, rubbed Jiang Yue’s hair, and took a pill.
"I will protect you."
"Okay."
With that, Yu Nianzhen sat cross-legged and Jiang Yue activated a defence formation disk.
A moment later, several streams of light flashed in the air and stopped in front of him
"Fellow Daoist Jiang." Mo Tianxing called and clasped his hands in greeting.
"Fellow Daoist Mo." Jiang Yue called but didn’t greet the others because he didn’t know them.
"May I ask what happened?"
"My Taoist companion and I encountered a pillar elder."
"A pillar elder?" Someone asked in shock.
Everyone knew that the pillar elders of the Death Flower Ascension Front were high-ranking cultivators of the nascent soul realm,
Even if they suppressed their cultivation, it was extremely difficult to deal with them.
"His name was Duan Buzhi." Jiang Yue answered and pointed to the deep hole.
"Did he escape into the hole?" Someone asked.
"He exploded himself."
"How is that possible?" Another asked in disbelief but Jiang Yue didn’t plan to prove anything.
At the end of the day, Duan Buzhi was dead and everyone would eventually find out.
Just when Jiang Yue was about to say something, several people gasped.
"What’s the matter?" He asked.
"Fellow Daoist Jiang, your names have appeared on the list." Mo Tianxing said and Jiang Yue turned about.
In front of the blessed land was a screen.
Initially, the screen had two lists-the Cangxing list and the bounty list.
However, without anyone’s notice, a ranking list had appeared as a third column.
At the moment, there were two names on the list.
The first was Yu Nianzhen with two points and the second was Jiang Yue with one.
"They really killed a nascent soul realm cultivator." Someone muttered and everyone turned to look at Jiang Yue.
"If there is a ranking, there must be a reward." Another said and the others felt a little urgent.
Originally, killing a disciple of the Death Flower Ascension Front earned merit points.
However, a blessed land had appeared and everyone felt that getting a good ranking would be beneficial.
"The ranking should have something to do with the spiritual pools."
"From the outside, there are many spiritual pools in the blessed land. Maybe the pools do not have the same grade and the ranking determines what pool we get to enjoy."
"What this fellow Daoist said makes sense. Getting a good ranking is necessary."
’The will of the world is really determined.’ Jiang Yue thought with a small smile on his lips.
With the competition setting, everyone would do their best to eliminate the enemy.
After all, killing the enemy was directly tied to one’s interests.
’As expected, self-interest is the greatest motivator.’ He thought and clenched his fists.
When with Yu Nianzhen, Jiang Yue tended to take a back seat when it came to fighting.
However, with the competition setting, he couldn’t do that.
He had to work hard because he not only wanted good rewards but also because he didn’t want Yu Nianzhen to walk ahead of him.
Jiang Yue didn’t want to walk behind or in front of Yu Nianzhen.
In his heart, he wanted to walk beside his husband so that they could always advance and retreat together.
"Has fellow Daoist Yu been injured?" Mo Tianxing suddenly asked.
"No, he has just exhausted his qi."
"That’s good." Mo Tianxing said and seemed genuinely glad.
However, some others felt differently.
Now that they were in a competitive mood, they wished for Yu Nianzhen to be injured.
In that way, they could take the opportunity to pull ahead on the ranking.
’Fools.’ Jiang Yue thought but didn’t bother to care about them.
Instead, he focused on protecting Yu Nianzhen while the other was recovering his qi.
An hour later, Yu Nianzhen finally opened his eyes and stood up
With a wave of his hand, Jiang Yue put deactivated the defence formation and walked to the swordsman.
"How are you?" He asked.
"I am okay." Yu Nianzhen answered.
Although his qi was not fully replenished, he had enough to defeat several origin tempering realm cultivators.
"What’s the situation?"
"You have topped again." Jiang Yue teased and Yu Nianzhen shivered a little.
When Jiang Yue saw that, he chuckled and his mood improved.
"There is a ranking." He clarified and pointed to the screen.
After one hour, more names were added to the list but Yu Nianzhen was still ranked first.
"It seems that nascent soul realm cultivators are worth three points, core formation realm are worth two, and origin tempering realm are worth one."
"If an enemy is killed by more than one person, points are divided according to contribution."
"We think the points are related to the spiritual pools." Mo Tianxing said and Yu Nianzhen nodded.
He also thought so and he couldn’t wait to accumulate more.
"That’s not the only change." Jiang Yue said and sighed.
When he had Yu Nianzhen’s attention, he once again pointed to the three lists on the screen.
"When a person falls, a red line crosses their name."
After saying that, Jiang Yue did not say more.
He waited for Yu Nianzhen to examine the lists before speaking again.
"Our side is losing against the other side." He said and Yu Nianzhen frowned.
"They have more high-level cultivators." He observed.
"In the last hour, their side has attacked our scouts a few times."
"They have more experience with fast sneak attacks." Someone complained and the others agreed.
"They have been doing it for years after all." Another grumbled grudgingly.
"Let’s go back first." Mo Tianxing said and the others agreed.
Originally, he was sent out to investigate what happened.
After finding out, he transmitted a report but didn’t go back to the base camp since Yu Nianzhen was still replenishing his qi.
In less than an incense stick of time, the group returned to the camp and went straight to the command tent.
"Congratulations fellow Daoist Yu and fellow Daoist Jiang." Meng Zihua said as soon as she saw them.
"Congratulations." Others also called and the two accepted the well wishes before taking their seats.
"As I was saying, we need to cut down the number of the core formation realm cultivators." Bei Chengling said.
"Although their cultivation is suppressed, their physical bodies and soul power are better than origin tempering realm cultivators. As long as they keep leading the enemy’s assault teams, we will be at a disadvantage."
"I received a report that one of the enemy’s core formation realm cultivators is a soul cultivator. Her soul is extraordinarily powerful and she has soul power." Wei Ge said and the room fell silent.
Soul cultivators were notoriously hard to deal with.
With a soul cultivator, the other side had an overwhelming advantage that was difficult to overcome.
"I will deal with her." Jiang Yue said.
"Fellow Daoist Jiang? Are you able to deal with soul cultivators?" Someone asked.
"I am an illusion master. I am sixty per cent confident."
In fact, Jiang Yue was more than ninety per cent confident.
After all, he and the others spent many years in the soul beasts’ forest and he had even condensed a soul flame.
If he couldn’t deal with a core formation realm soul cultivator, he would feel sorry for the years of training.
"Soul cultivation is different from illusions." Someone warned.
The person was part of a group that barely escaped the soul cultivator.
From his experience, he knew the horror of a soul cultivator and he wanted others to understand.
"Thank you for your concern fellow Daoist. However, I am confident."
"In that case, fellow Daoist Jiang will lead a team to deal with the soul cultivator." Wei Ge said and no one argued.
"Other than the soul cultivator, I also want to talk about Liu Bai." Wei Ge continued and everybody sighed.
Among all the enemies, Liu Bai was the most dangerous.
As long as she wasn’t dead, they couldn’t rest easy because the woman was capable of launching sword attacks from a distance.
"We still need to arrange a defence formation." Bei Chengling suggested.
Initially, everyone wanted to launch an offensive and didn’t care about defence.
However, the last hour had taught them a lesson.
No matter what, a protective formation was necessary if they didn’t want to fight a pyrrhic war.
"Let’s make the defence formation our first priority. After that, we can talk about killing enemies."
"I agree."
"We have already lost several people and it won’t do to lose more."
With that, a team of formation masters was quickly formed.
The team included Jiang Yue, Bei Chengling, and a master in the core formation realm.
After the team was formed, the three got together to discuss the kind of formation they wanted to arrange while the rest talked about collecting formation materials.
