Chapter 28: People from the Town Arrive

In Beast Village, ten thousand villagers worked together and quickly built a massive stone castle. The outer walls of the ancient castle were made of various colored huge stones, though of different hues, they were stacked neatly, giving it a magnificent appearance. At over thirty meters tall, it was by far the tallest structure in entire Beast Village.

Qu Yi personally carved three characters at the entrance of the castle: San Ding Men. Of course, only Qu Yi knew the meaning of these three characters. This was the faction he had cultivated in the lower realms, a faction that had expanded to cover the realms of cultivation, spirit cultivation, immortals, demons, monsters, and the Divine Realm of Falling Stars, becoming the dominant force in these six realms. Qu Yi also used San Ding Men to seize the faith energy of cultivators from these realms, allowing him to make rapid progress in his own cultivation.

The ten thousand villagers of Beast Village looked at the words “San Ding Men.” Though they didn’t understand their exact meaning, they all realized that these words held great significance in Qu Yi’s heart. Thus, none of them asked him out of curiosity.

At that moment, Qu Yi stood at the entrance of the stone castle, looking at the ten thousand villagers. “Everyone, thank you for building this stone castle for me. Now go back to your homes. In ten thousand years, I will gather everyone again, and then you will be able to receive your own divine artifacts,” Qu Yi said with a smile.

The ten thousand villagers thanked him collectively once more before happily leaving the castle and returning to their homes.

Sun Bufan had not left the whole time. As the last one to stay, he smiled at Qu Yi and kept staring inside the castle. “Why aren’t you leaving?” Qu Yi asked, staring at Sun Bufan with a faint smile.

“Qu Yi, during these ten thousand years of crafting artifacts, you must need someone to serve you. Look, I’m strong, quick-witted, hardworking, and uncomplaining…” Sun Bufan straightened up and began to praise himself.

Qu Yi immediately interrupted him, pretending to be angry, “Enough. Stop having ulterior motives. Go back to your own home. If anything happens, I’ll contact you.”

Sun Bufan curled his lower lip and cast a few resentful glances at Qu Yi. Realizing his plan wouldn’t work, he turned and left.

How could Qu Yi allow someone to stay by his side? After all, he couldn’t spend all ten thousand years crafting artifacts. He also had to take care of Wu Yuan and Qing Wu Gui from time to time. At such times, he would use the Boundless Star Patterns—something he certainly couldn’t let outsiders know about.

After driving Sun Bufan away, Qu Yi entered the stone castle and closed a stone door behind him.

“Divine Artificer, what kind of formation should be set up inside this stone castle?” Qu Yi immediately contacted the Divine Artificer within his Miniature Realm. To prevent the villagers from sensing his activities inside the stone castle, Qu Yi wanted to set up a formation to block their spiritual senses, so that his artificing process wouldn’t be discovered by them, and neither would his departure from the castle be known to the outside world. “There’s no need for a formation to block spiritual sensing; use an Illusion Formation instead,” came the lazy reply from the Divine Artificer. Soon after, Qu Yi sensed additional content in his soul—it was the Illusion Formation. An Illusion Formation is a type of deceptive formation. Cultivators below the Divine Weapon stage, when using their spiritual senses to sense the space where the formation is located, cannot detect the presence of the formation. Moreover, once their spiritual senses enter the formation’s space, everything they perceive is illusory—scenes deliberately revealed by the formation’s controller. Thus, with this Illusion Formation, Qu Yi wouldn’t have to worry about the villagers’ spiritual sensing. Even if they did sense something, Qu Yi could remain aware at any time and make the formation project illusions to make the villagers believe them to be real. The materials needed to set up the Illusion Formation were all available in Qu Yi’s Miniature Realm. However, he didn’t have many Divine Crystals to maintain the formation. But this didn’t pose a problem for Qu Yi, as he had previously created many Chaos Crystals, which were even more advanced than Divine Crystals, and could be used as substitutes. After a day, Qu Yi finally set up the Illusion Formation inside the stone castle. Then, he began his large-scale artificing efforts. ※※※ In the residence of Bai Shou Village’s village chief, Xu Qiang, there was a communication formation used to directly contact Huo Xin Town. At that moment, the communication formation in Xu Qiang’s house lit up. Inside the formation’s space, a cylindrical white light area formed, with colored lights flashing inside, as if someone was sending messages. These colored lights were signals sent by the controller of the other communication formation, intended for Xu Qiang to receive. But since Xu Qiang was already dead, naturally, no one could receive these messages. Before long, the communication formation dimmed again, clearly indicating that the controller on the other side had already learned of Xu Qiang’s death. In the Huo Li Divine Realm, every village had a communication formation in the village chief’s residence, allowing various organizations and forces in the realm to communicate with the village chiefs. This was also a tool for the realm’s powerful figures to exercise control.

The communication array in Xu Qiang’s residence was already linked to his identity card. Since Xu Qiang hadn’t received any messages, it meant he was dead.
……
The higher-level administration of Bai Shou Village was Huo Xin Town. In the town mayor’s residence in Huo Xin Town, there was a large group of attics serving as the communication area for connecting Huo Xin Town with various villages. Each attic was equipped with hundreds of communication arrays to maintain contact with the villages under Huo Xin Town’s jurisdiction.
In one of the rooms in Attic No. 5, there was a graceful and gentle woman. She had just activated the communication array to contact Xu Qiang, the village chief of Bai Shou Village, and inform him that the Huo Li Merchant Alliance would arrive at Bai Shou Village ten thousand years later to collect the divine crystals.
The Huo Li Merchant Alliance was the largest commercial alliance in the Huo Li Divine Realm, backed by the influence of a divine king. It possessed countless flying ships used to collect items from various villages in the Huo Li Divine Realm, such as the divine crystals from Bai Shou Village and the beast cores obtained by some adventurers.
“That Xu Qiang, the village chief of Bai Shou Village, is dead. I need to report this to the team leader,” the woman said calmly after shutting down the communication array.
She then took out her identity card and reported Xu Qiang’s death to the team leader.
Not long after, Qu Wan Tian, the mayor of Huo Xin Town, also received the report and learned that Xu Qiang, the village chief of Bai Shou Village, had died.
The position of village chief rotated every ten million years through elections. Xu Qiang had only held the position for six million years, not yet reaching the ten-million-year mark. However, the position could not remain vacant, so Bai Shou Village had to elect a new chief to serve the remaining four million years.
In Qu Wan Tian’s cultivation room in Huo Xin Town, he sat immobile, his eyes as deep as stars, lost in thought.
“It turns out to be Xu Qiang, that junior from the same realm as Xu Ming. He had just recruited three villagers—how could he die so quickly? There’s definitely something interesting here. Alright, let Bai Shou Village elect a new chief first. I’ll observe further. Xu Ming plans to send Qu Yi, Wu Yuan, and Qing Wu Gui to Bai Shou Village. I’m suspicious of their identities. There must be secrets hidden about them,” Qu Wan Tian said with a faint smile before closing his eyes to continue cultivating.
Subsequently, the person in Huo Xin Town responsible for registering village chiefs summoned a member of the town’s inspection team to go to Bai Shou Village and deliver the decision to elect a new chief. Accompanying this inspection team was also a guard squad of ten people.
※※※

The village chiefs of Bai Shou Village were either busy searching for the Divine Crystal Tree or cultivating to expand their spiritual bodies during this time, but everyone was concerned about one thing: Qu Yi’s efforts to craft divine artifacts inside the stone castle. Some villagers, unable to resist the temptation, stretched out their spiritual senses to probe the ‘Three Cauldrons Gate’ stone castle and discovered that Qu Yi had been working tirelessly to create divine artifacts without taking a single break. Of course, these villagers had no idea that these were all illusions controlled by Qu Yi, not the actual situation of his artifact-making process. After realizing that Qu Yi was indeed crafting artifacts, they became more at ease and eagerly awaited the passage of ten thousand years so that they could possess a divine artifact of their own. Yet, less than three years had passed when the mayor of Huo Xin Town sent a team of eleven people, led by Cao Du. Cao Du, belonging to Huo Xin Town’s Inspection Team, came to Bai Shou Village to deliver orders from Mayor Qu Wan Tian: the village was to elect a new chief, after which he would take the new chief to Huo Xin Town for registration. The other ten members were from Huo Xin Town’s Guardian Team. “All villagers of Bai Shou Village, I am Cao Du, a member of the third team of Huo Xin Town’s Inspection Team. By order of the mayor, I come to announce to you that your former chief, Xu Qiang, has died. Now, you may begin electing a new chief,” Cao Du declared as soon as he arrived in Bai Shou Village. Naturally, with their cultivation at the Divine Being level, the villagers’ spiritual senses detected his voice and thus learned of Xu Qiang’s death. “Xu Qiang is dead!” “Xu Qiang and Tian Duo went into the mountains with Qu Yi and never returned—so they died.” “Is Xu Qiang’s death related to Qu Yi?” “A new chief will be chosen so quickly? The Divine Realm truly doesn’t treat cultivators at the Divine Being level as human beings.” … In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through the minds of the ten thousand villagers. After hearing Cao Du’s words, they all left their homes and gathered at the entrance of Bai Shou Village, forming a crowd and looking at Cao Du and the ten members of the Guardian Team behind him. Cao Du sensed the entire village with his spiritual senses and realized that only Qu Yi had not come. After pondering briefly, he didn’t dwell on it and smiled at the ten thousand villagers before him.

“Villagers of Bai Shou Village, our town chief is extremely angry about the death of your former village chief, Xu Qiang. He sent me here with ten members of the guard team to investigate how Xu Qiang died. So, if any of you know anything, please share it with us,” Cao Du said with a smile.

Ten thousand villagers immediately thought of Qu Yi’s name, but not being sure, they didn’t say anything.

At that moment, Sun Bu Fan, who was standing in front of the villagers, secretly used his spiritual awareness to communicate with them one by one. “Everyone, although Xu Qiang died after entering the mountainous area with Qu Yi, there’s no evidence showing he was killed by Qu Yi. Right now, Qu Yi is helping us craft divine artifacts, so we shouldn’t disturb him. Let’s all agree on one story: Xu Qiang and Tian Duo went into the mountains and never returned. No one knows whether they’re dead or alive.”

Sun Bu Fan was also a cultivator at the Divine Being stage, so his spiritual communication went unnoticed by Cao Du and the ten guard team members.

After receiving Sun Bu Fan’s message, the villagers quickly realized that revealing the truth to Cao Du would bring them no benefit and might even disturb Qu Yi, potentially angering him. If that happened, it would be impossible for them to obtain the divine artifacts.

At this point, Sun Bu Fan calmly looked at Cao Du and said with a smile, “Inspector Cao Du, we only know that Village Chief Xu Qiang and Head Tian Duo went to the Savage Beast Mountain Area together, about three years ago. Since then, they haven’t returned to Bai Shou Village.”

“Yes, Xu Qiang and Tian Duo went to the mountains and never came back.”

“That’s right. They went into the mountains and there’s been no news since.”

……

In just a moment, all ten thousand villagers affirmed this.

Cao Du hadn’t really hoped for much and didn’t intend to uncover the truth. He had asked those questions merely to have something to report back to the town chief. Now, hearing the villagers all say the same thing, though still somewhat skeptical, he decided not to delve further.

“If everyone says so, then there’s no problem. Xu Qiang and Tian Duo probably encountered savage beasts in the mountains and died as a result. Well, I’ll report this to the town chief for his decision. Next, you need to elect a new village chief and then come with me to Huo Xin Town to register,” Cao Du said with a smile.

The ten thousand villagers reacted differently upon hearing this.