Chapter 345: Failed Negotiation
"Ha! A diplomat?"
The topic strayed from Zhu Qiao's marriage partner as soon as Miaomiao declared himself as a foreign diplomat.
Sun Wentai clumped toward Miaomiao as he expanded his domain power. A ghost ship, a medieval galley, appeared behind the sect master, showing the broadside as its cannons aimed at the target, Miaomiao.
Miaomiao also fully transformed into a dragonewt. While confronting a nascent soul cultivator, his obnoxious smirk never left his face.
Sun Wentai stopped walking when he was less than a meter in front of Miaomiao. He leaned forward as if he wanted to kiss his lizard nose, yet his bloodshot eyes stared into Miaomiao's soul, "If you're the diplomat as you self-proclaimed, you must be Cao Mao, the envoy of Siren City that Sun Jing has informed me, aren't you?"
"Yes, I fucking am."
"I see," Sun Wentai sneered and walked back ten steps.
BOOM
One of the galley's cannons spat fire and unleashed a cannonball toward Miaomiao's head.
The latter back-fisted the oncoming cannonball while he continued having a staring competition with Sun Wentai.
CLANK
The cannonball was deflected, but it detonated a second later. Metal element shrapnel, fire element explosive, and Sun Wentai's advanced power, sound element shockwave hit Miaomiao.
The metal element and fire element couldn't harm Miaomiao's physique, but the sound shockwave shook his eardrums. Still, as a mutated dragonewt, the damaged inner organs instantly healed the next second.
New system skills, Dragon Transformation and Supreme Dragon Recovery were the prizes of killing Xie Tian at 400% difficulty. Currently, Miaomiao's resilience was as cockroach-like as Xie Tian, and no ordinary attack could pose a threat to him. Combining with the incomplete Asmodeus Bloodline, Miaomiao's cheat-like existence was already on the tier of OP protagonists in wuxia novels.
Strength boosted one's confidence. Miaomiao fearlessly provoked Sun Wentai and braced the attacks head-on to feel the gap between him and Sun Wentai's strength.
Upon getting attacked, Miaomiao figured out Sun Wentai's basic skills, abilities, his element Qi, advanced element Qi, and nascent soul power. Although Miaomiao hadn't fought Sun Wentai's clone in Isolation Training Space yet, he was confident that he could take on this person in a duel.
However, he might not survive if all Sun Wentai's goons came at him at the same time. After all, no one could tell if a cheat-like protagonist might appear and ambush him.
As Miaomiao didn't want to challenge the entire sect and the Sun Clan at the moment, he didn't retaliate. The villain tilted his head and picked his right ear hole with the long black claw.
"Do it one more time, and you will never see Sun Yun again."
"!!!"
The threat was effective. Sun Wentai, who was about to follow up with a concentrate fire from the warship, stopped fueling his yang essence to his nascent soul. He dispelled the ghost warship and receded his killing intent.
Still, his facial expression didn't hide his hatred of Miaomiao.
"Where is she?"
"Siren City," Miaomiao smirked. His lizardman's head made the smile darker, and Sun Wentai thought that the former had mocked him.
"Then, that's the more reason for us to attack Siren City. Now, go back and tell your lord to hand over the girl, and we shall overlook this offense!"
"Seriously, I don't know how you become the sect master of this place with your temperament and intelligence. It seems that you resolved everything with your brute force so far, and you forgot how to be a human."
"Don't mislead me! You're just an errand boy. Do exactly what I told you to do."
Miaomiao facepalmed and shook his head. Then, he glanced at Huang Gongfu and pointed at Sun Wentai with his thumb, "Was he always like this?"
Huang Gongfu couldn't answer and only wryly smiled. His lord had never lost his temper like this before, which showed how angry the latter was.
Seeing how Huang Gongfu couldn't help him, Miaomiao sighed and peered at Sun Wentai, "You see, I don't want to fight you since I'm here for a peace talk, not delivering a message. If you keep this up, I don't think forming an alliance with you will do us any good. Now, if you excuse me. I shall return and tell Sun Yun that this sect is beyond help, and Sun Wentai isn't someone we should befriend with. Goodbye."
Miaomiao kicked the ground and flew off the floating mountain.
Gan Ning widened his eyes in shock as he had never seen a 4th-stage cultivator fly before. He shouted.
"Boss! Are you leaving me here!?"
Miaomiao froze in mid-air. He turned around and landed next to Gan Ning and carried him over his shoulder.
As Miaomiao was about to leave again, two elders ascended the stairs by flight and landed at the front yard.
The elder was Cheng Pu, who had talked with Zhou Gongjin earlier. As for the other one, he was the younger brother of Sun Wentai, Sun Jing.
Sun Jing's face had the same outline as Sun Wentai. However, he was thinner and smaller. His cultivation base was meagerly 5th-stage, which couldn't be compared to the sect master. Even though part of Sun Wentai's hair was white, Sun Jing's skin and expression looked worn-out, which seemed older than his brother.
Upon arrival, Sun Jing looked around in excitement. Then, he gazed at both Gan Ning and Miaomiao.
"Which one of you is Cao Mao?"
Miaomiao raised his eyebrows and put Gan Ning down. He cupped his fist and bowed to the man.
"That would be me. You must be Sun Yun's father, am I right?"
"Ah! Aha…Ahahaha! Yes. Yes! I'm Sun Yun's father!" In joy, Sun Jing ran toward Miaomiao and patted his shoulders. The elder inspected him from head to toes.
Miaomiao glanced at Sun Wentai for a moment as he had an inspiration. He knelt down and kowtowed to Sun Jing.
"Cao Mao greets father-in-law. I'm Sun Yun's husband."
"Good! Very good! Hahahaha! Sun Yun praised you a lot on the phone. I always wanted to meet you!" Sun Jing kept laughing as he raised Miaomiao up. Without caring about his younger brother or others, he hugged Miaomiao. "Thank you! THANK YOU! THANK YOU FOR SAVING MY DAUGHTER!!"
"Err, you're welcome."
"Hahahaha! Not only my daughter is still alive, I now have a son! Come! Come with me. I'll bring you to see your mother-in-law! We have a lot to talk about! No… We need a celebration! Let's have a banquet!"
Sun Jing grabbed Miaomiao's hand and dragged him down the mountain amidst the puzzled look on everybody's faces.
Gan Ning snapped back to his senses first. He followed Miaomiao and Sun Jing as he believed in his prodigal boss.
Unfortunately, they couldn't leave.
Sun Wentai expanded his domain power and used his killing intent to suppress Sun Jing.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!! SUN JING, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE!?"
Sun Jing struggled to stand on his feet. He coughed as if he was short of breath, but he yelled back at his brother while having teary eyes.
"You're the heartless one, Wentai! My daughter called me and told me everything! I can't believe that you tried to kill my benefactor… MY SON-IN-LAW!!"
"You…"
Sun Wentai was fume with rage, but he didn't dare to harm his own blood brother. His clenched fists trembled as the sect master tried his best to reel his anger.
Cheng Pu, who had accompanied Sun Jing here, stood between them and knelt, "My lord. Please calm down. I have heard the conversation between Lord Sun Jing and Sun Yun, and she explained everything through the phone. This man here, Cao Mao, is actually Sun Yun's husband and the governor of Siren City. He saved her from the Xu Clan's dungeon and restored her sanity. In a way, he is the benefactor of Sun Yun. Please stop picking a fight with him!"
Huang Gongfu noticed the opportunity. He also followed up, "My lord. Junior Cao Mao is talented and stronger than everyone in his age. I can vouch for him that he is worthy to be a son-in-law of the Sun Clan! Moreover, he has just passed the white tiger's exam. If we harm him, the guardian beast will be very displeased, and he might revolt again!"
"…"
Sun Wentai was taken aback by his subordinates' protest and plea. He forgot about the prior rage as he gazed at Miaomiao carefully again.
By throwing away his prejudice, Sun Wentai sensed an overwhelming volume of essence in Miaomiao's dantian. In addition, his Qi and Essence were purer than his.
And finally, Sun Wentai noticed the obvious irregular scene. A 4th-stage cultivator who could transform was too abnormal. Furthermore, he caught a glimpse of Miaomiao's dragon fire element Qi.
Only human cultivators stronger than 6th-stage could merge with their dao avatars and transform. Secondly, the foundation establishment realm was the minimum requirement for a cultivator to learn a flight skill, and only exceptional 5th-stage cultivators could use advanced element Qi.
Miaomiao broke all the common sense and logic as he possessed every skill that a core pillar realm cultivator could have.
Realizing the uniqueness and potential of Miaomiao, Sun Wentai's face was pale. He opened his mouth, wanting to apologize to the youth, but his pride forbade him from releasing the voice.
It was too late. Sun Jing led Miaomiao and Gan Ning down the stairs.
…
Meanwhile, Zhu Qiao, who was forgotten, observed the event from the sideline. After Miaomiao had distracted Sun Wentai from her engagement topic, she was relieved.
However, the new development took her by surprise. She hadn't expected Miaomiao to be favored by an elder from the Sun Clan or the sect.
'System, what the fuck is happening? What kind of event is this? Can I see that guy's status?'
Ding
Miaomiao's detail was shown on her system screen, but there was no information about his relationship with other girls. The only thing on her blue screen was the favor gauge and the capture progress.
Nothing was useful.
'Where is the relationship detail!? I want to see who his girlfriend is!?'
Ding
[The information is inaccessible as you have less system authority than Mao Miaomiao.]
The answer shocked Zhu Qiao. For the first time, she felt insecure.
'What!? Wait, what is that shit? What's system authority that I don't know!?'
[Mao Miaomiao also possesses a system, and his system authority is higher than mine.]
BOOM
The piece of information rocked her world. Although she knew that protagonists existed in this world, she had never expected that someone with a stronger system than her existed.
"…"
Zhu Qiao paused and massaged her temples, trying to prioritize important tasks first.
But the system didn't stop giving her another headache.
[Please complete more side quests and unlock a new status, [Luck]. Then, your system can gain more authority.]
Again, Zhu Qiao had the urge to scream as this item in her system shop was unreasonably expensive. She had to complete at least 200 random high-difficulty quests before she could buy this new status.
This [Luck] status required a whooping million diamonds to unlock!
Easy quest usually net her 10 diamonds each, which could be exchanged into items or gacha tickets. Though one gacha ticket cost 100 diamonds, while the cheapest item in her system shop cost 200.
A high-difficulty side quest could give Zhu Qiao between 1,000 to 10,000 diamonds, depending on the complexity of the quest.
The problem was not the difficulty, but it was the tedious annoying tasks. Most of them required traveling and scavenging, such as searching for lost artifacts under a city, under the paved concrete road. Each quest usually took a month or two to complete.
'This is going to be a grind. I don't have time for this. AND I NEED THAT GUY'S INFORMATION!!'
Ding
[If your [Luck] status is higher than Mao Miaomiao's, you may inspect his hidden attributes and statuses.]
'Then, how do I unlock that [Luck] without grinding!?'
[You have one in a billion chance to draw [Luck] status from the gacha system.]
"…"
Zhu Qiao rolled her eyes. Even with the gacha system, she might have to pay a lot more than the total sum of over 200 high-difficulty quest rewards.
'Like hell, I will draw gacha to unlock my Luck status. I'll only draw daily free gacha.'
As Zhu Qiao thought that far, she recalled that the day had reset, and she could draw a free item from her system. Without further ado, she opened her precious gacha menu and drew one.
Without a roulette, a slot machine, nor a game-like teaser, the system informed her about her prize.
Ding
[Congratulations. You have won a jackpot prize, [Luck] Status.]
"…"
Zhu Qiao had a pokerface while her eyes turned into two small dots.
'F2P roll, bitches!'
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