The Jade King swallowed hard with shock; Qing Yu had completely emptied out the vaults of Hopeless Major!

  Apart from some critical pills, medicines, items, and purple crystal veins, she’d brought the rest of the treasures here to Lu Yun. These endless mounds of wealth would immediately vault him to the seat of richest man in the Hongmeng.

  “Uh, um… this is too much!” Lu Yun’s eyes threatened to fall out of his head when he took a look at what was inside the storage treasure. If its contents were emptied out into the world of immortals, they would overflow into the cosmos around the planet. Some specific items were bigger than the entire world!

  “They’re just sitting there in Hopeless Major, no one can make use of them.” Qing Yu caressed Quiet with a smile. Just this sword alone was more valuable than all of those treasures—this was an item from the fourth realm!

  Additionally, it still belonged to Lu Yun. While she could deploy the weapon to its full limits, anything it killed would become one of his Infernum.

  “Here are purple crystal veins!” A ball of hazy light appeared in Lu Yun’s hands. “This is five hundred thousand premium crystal veins. The Redbud King brought it as a congratulatory gift for the Immortal Pagoda’s grand opening. It’s all yours!”
“Wonderful!” Qing Yu’s eyes gleamed brightly. Hopeless Major lacked most for purple crystals at the moment, and nothing about this was surprising since the little fox had told her about the relationship between the Redbud King and Lu Yun.

  Five hundred thousand veins might sound like a lot, but it was far from enough to the major. But with the Immortal Pagoda open for business now and all of the treasures that Qing Yu had brought, it wouldn’t be a difficult task for Lu Yun to earn more.

  “Little Yu, just tell me what else you need. I don’t have it all just yet, but I’ll have it soon since I’ve found my footing here!” Lu Yun knew that his beloved didn't want to give him too much pressure when he saw her refrain from continuing. He wasn’t afraid of this kind of pressure—the more there was, the greater his own motivation.

  Qing Yu wasn’t doing any of this for herself or Hopeless Major, but for the world of immortals that they all protected!

  As weak as he was at the moment, Lu Yun couldn’t participate in that level of battle, but he could and would supply all manner of supplemental items to his dao partner.

  “I need purple crystals, pills, medicines, and all sorts of treasures.” Qing Yu gently bit her lip. “But I need far too many of them and there’s only one of you…”
She really didn’t want to give him any pressure. Lu Yun would die of exhaustion if she really listed everything she wanted; he was the only one propping up the Immortal Pagoda. Though the little fox was also a supplemental king, she was one of illusions and not skilled at refining pills or weapons.

  “Hahaha!!” Lu Yun threw his head back in laughter when he heard this. “Don’t you worry about that, I’ve specialized in puppet craft since arriving in the Hongmeng. I can create grandmaster level puppets now! What do you think of this Immortal Pagoda? I built it with my puppet grandmasters.”
His Bean Soldiers were also a type of puppet art. The powerful puppets that he’d deployed in recent battles were a combination of that death art and puppets. When he inscribed the Thousand Obliteration Formation of the Six Royals into them, they were on par with half step kings.

  In the same vein, it was too difficult for puppets to ascend to kinghood. They would have the strength of a first step king only if they congregated in another Thousand Obliteration Formation of the Six Royals.

  Regardless, their capabilities were still frightening enough. Nowhere in the current Hongmeng, not even the Valley of Ten Evils, could a faction assemble an army of half step kings. Lu Yun could do so as long as he had sufficient time to refine his puppets!

  “Give me a year. I’ll give you an army of a hundred thousand half step kings after a year!” he promised heroically. He’d been short on resources before; Qing Yu’s delivery abruptly provided him considerable latitude for future action. He even had enough ingredients to refine countless cauldrons of Eight Treasures Return and Six Paths Reincarnation Pills.

  The crystal core of an arcane beast king? Hopeless Major had enough to play dominoes with.

  Terra Grass? It was rare enough that Hopeless Major didn’t have many blades either, but Lu Yun possessed a pool of Terra Light Magneticus that he stored in the Purple Stellar Mountain. He had as much grass as he wanted.

  “I was expecting to be berated by those old things after emptying the Hopeless Major vaults, but returning with five hundred thousand premium crystal veins ought to shut them up,” Qing Yu chuckled merrily.

  “Ah, you should probably change the Jade King’s presence and appearance. Though she rarely ventures into the public eye, I can’t promise that no one will recognize her. It would be disastrous if anyone discovered you have a connection to Hopeless Major,” she quickly added.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll use a hundred and eight karmic fruits to refine a Shapeshifting Talisman. It’ll completely change her aura and looks. No one will recognize her!” Lu Yun had planned to use this method to alter the Beast King, but since the latter was only a sixth step king, he wasn’t worthy of wasting karmic fruits on.

  There was a Hua Fengwen holding down the fort in the Immortal Pagoda. Though his dao heart teetered on the edge of shattering, his progress on the path of dao would leap forward as soon as he came to terms with recent happenings.

  He’d taken the mountain of Earth Light Magneticus away from the Windcall King earlier, stunning the crowds with his hand. The Jade King that Qing Yu brought was worthy of Lu Yun expending a hundred and eight karmic fruits to modify her.

  A hundred and eight golden karmic fruits appeared in the air and came together as a sparkling talisman that melted into the Jade King’s body. Her demeanor and bearing immediately changed drastically, transforming from the frosty Jade King into a brand new person.

  Qing Yu applauded with appreciation. “The karmic fruits are so magical, I can’t see her original form at all! If I can’t, those ninth step kings won’t be able to either!” she declared confidently.

  “Don’t use the Jade King name anymore. From now on…” Lu Yun frowned slightly. “Jinse! Your name is Jinse!”
Qing Yu looked at him with surprise.

  “There is a poem from my homeland that starts with ‘Oh beautiful zither, why do you have fifty strings instead of twenty-five? Every chord and note speak of my longing for those beautiful days’. The characters ‘jin’ and ‘se’ mean a beautiful zither,” sighed Lu Yun. His homeland was Earth—his roots and the foundation of the world of immortals.

  Qing Yu gently grasped his hand.

  “Thank you for bestowing me with a name, master!” Jinse prostrated herself on the ground again.

  “Here’s fifty thousand karmic fruits, take them. They’re more useful than any pill, medicine, or treasure.” Lu Yun handed over another twinkling ball of light.

  The amount of fruit that the Karmic Tree could bear was fixed at a maximum of a hundred and eight thousand fruits. If it wasn’t for a massive quantity needed to repel the yin spirits in the cosmos around the world of immortals, Lu Yun would’ve given all of them to Qing Yu.

  “Alright!” Qing Yu accepted them without a second thought, causing Lu Yun’s heart to sink slightly. Her subconscious reactions were indicating that the situation was much more severe than she’d conveyed!

  etvolare's Thoughts

  The poet is someone who misses his dead wife, and the fifty strings is a nod to the fact that they were cut after her death since there should be twenty-five on a standard zither.