Chapter 124: The Grand Gesture of the Jinjiao Tribe

After Lu Qingshan left the temple of Crimanthis, King Tawen and the two Marquis Immortals from his tribe were still waiting outside.

"Marquis Qingshan!"

Seeing Lu Qingshan leave the temple, King Tawen quickly stepped forward to greet him along with his two subordinates.

"King Tawen!"

Lu Qingshan asked with a smile: "I wonder if you could prepare a quiet chamber for me? I plan to sort through the guidance the Elder just gave me!"

Hearing Lu Qingshan's words, the two Marquis Immortals behind King Tawen could not help but show a trace of envy on their faces.

King Tawen was a King Immortal, so he naturally had opportunities to seek audience with the tribe Elders and even receive their guidance, but for Marquis Immortals like them, receiving an Elder's guidance was considerably more difficult.

Through endless ages, they had only sat in a few times when the tribe Elders gave public lectures; never once had they experienced one-on-one guidance!

Yet the Marquis Qingshan standing before them was not even as strong as they were, but because of his human identity, he was able to receive one-on-one guidance from an Elder!

And at this moment…

"No problem!"

King Tawen quickly said: "Our Tawen Tribe is a superior tribe, and we have a fixed residence within the Shengcheng. Marquis Qingshan, you may go there to cultivate!"

"Many thanks, King Tawen!" Lu Qingshan nodded slightly, then quickly followed King Tawen to a cultivation residence within the Shengcheng, and entered closed-door cultivation in a quiet chamber.

……

Lu Qingshan sat cross-legged in the quiet chamber, closed his eyes, and slowly recalled the many insights he had gained under the guidance of the Jinjiao tribe Elder Crimanthis, beginning to savor and digest them carefully.

Like this, several months passed before he knew it.

That day, Lu Qingshan walked out of the quiet chamber, and several figures quickly flashed outside — it was King Tawen and the two Marquis Immortals of his tribe, and besides them there was even a Realm Master.

"King Tawen, who is this…?" Lu Qingshan looked at the Realm Master, who appeared quite young, and asked with some puzzlement.

"This is our Tawen Tribe's peerless genius, Sifan Qi!"

The burly King Tawen quickly introduced with a smile: "He has been cultivating in the Shengcheng recently. When he heard us mention that you, Marquis Qingshan, had come all the way from the human race, he wanted to pay you a visit!"

Tawen Tribe? Peerless genius Sifan Qi?

King Tawen's introduction quickly reminded Lu Qingshan of the Jinjiao tribe King-peak Immortal Sifan Qi whom Luo Feng had encountered in the original work when he was externally deployed at the Domain Lord stage.

That Sifan Qi had likewise come from the Tawen Tribe, and had even invited Luo Feng to visit Lasau World, the new homeland after the human race's vassal tribes joined the Jinjiao tribe!

In that case, the Tawen Tribe Realm Master genius named Sifan Qi before him was very likely that future King-peak powerhouse Sifan Qi!

After all, a single tribe of the Jinjiao race did not have too many members, and the probability of becoming a genius and then sharing the same name was even smaller!

Thinking of this, Lu Qingshan immediately looked at the somewhat simple-looking Realm Master of the Tawen Tribe, and said with a smile: "Sifan Qi, hello, very glad to meet you!"

Sensing Lu Qingshan's warmth, a trace of excitement also appeared in Sifan Qi's eyes, and he hurriedly said: "Lord Marquis Qingshan, meeting you, I am also very excited and very happy, thank you, thank you."

Listening to Sifan Qi's rather foolish-sounding words, Lu Qingshan could not help but sigh inwardly.

In the original work, when that Sifan Qi went to human territory to help Luo Feng eliminate alien spies, he had also brought along a relatively young Jinjiao tribe Realm Master named 'Kashina'.

And now it seemed that the not-yet-grown Sifan Qi did share some similarities with that Kashina.

But this was not strange, after all, the Jinjiao race were rock-type lifeforms; although they possessed souls, their intelligence was still inferior to that of most flesh-type lifeforms of the same realm.

Of course, as strength and realm continuously rose, the gap in intelligence between various lifeforms would grow smaller and smaller.

Only now, in order to accommodate Lu Qingshan, King Tawen had everyone communicating in the human race's cosmic common language. This Sifan Qi was probably still quite young and did not understand the human race's cosmic common language well, which was why he came across as a bit foolish.

Meanwhile, King Tawen continued the introduction: "Marquis Qingshan, Sifan Qi's talent, placed within our entire Jinjiao tribe, is extremely powerful!"

"Although he cannot compare with the very top Realm Master geniuses of your human race, he has only cultivated for just over a million years and already possesses Marquis-level law comprehension. In the future, even becoming a King Immortal is very possible!"

Hearing this, Lu Qingshan nodded slightly.

Cultivating for just over a million years and already possessing Marquis-level law comprehension — Sifan Qi's talent was already no less than that of those Realm Master geniuses in the Virtual Universe Company's Primordial Secret Realm.

If one factored in the resource gap between the Jinjiao tribe and the human race in nurturing talented juniors, this Sifan Qi, even placed within the Primordial Secret Realm, would be enough to rank among the very top!

"Truly worthy of being the genius who in the future comprehends 'Teleportation' and becomes a King-peak!"

Lu Qingshan sighed inwardly, then said with a smile: "Perhaps he can become a King-peak powerhouse in the future!"

Hearing Lu Qingshan's words, the people of the Tawen Tribe also quickly showed smiles.

One must know that even King Tawen himself was only an early-stage King right now.

Those who could successfully step into the King-peak tier — added together across the entire Jinjiao tribe — would not exceed two hundred!

Lu Qingshan saying Sifan Qi could become a King-peak powerhouse in the future was clearly words of praise, but it still made them very happy!

At this moment, King Tawen also quickly looked at Lu Qingshan and asked: "I wonder how your closed-door cultivation went this time, Marquis Qingshan?"

"Very good!"

Lu Qingshan said with a smile: "Previously, under Elder Crimanthis's guidance, I was fortunate enough to break through. Now after spending this closed-door session sorting things out, I can be considered to know the direction of my next comprehension!"

Hearing Lu Qingshan's words, King Tawen beside him was clearly very surprised: "Marquis Qingshan, could it be that you've broken through to high-stage Marquis?"

Although Lu Qingshan's divine power had already been restructured, when he did not actively release his aura, even King Tawen, as a King Immortal, found it very difficult to discern his true strength.

"Mm!" Lu Qingshan nodded slightly.

After receiving Lu Qingshan's affirmative answer, King Tawen was also somewhat shaken inside.

One must know that after becoming an Immortal, every step forward was extremely difficult. He himself had broken through straight to Marquis-peak back then, but until now, having cultivated for untold eons, he was still only an early-stage King Immortal!

Thinking of this, King Tawen's attitude toward Lu Qingshan could not help but grow several degrees warmer: "Marquis Qingshan, the Elder has also prepared a gift for you. I wonder if you'd like to go take a look now?"

"A gift?"

Lu Qingshan's thoughts stirred, and he quickly said: "Then I'll trouble you to lead the way, King Tawen!"

"Marquis Qingshan, you're too polite — all of this is what we should do!"

King Tawen said with a smile: "Then let's head to the Scripture Pagoda now!"

……

Led by King Tawen, Lu Qingshan quickly followed him to a towering white pagoda.

The entire Scripture Pagoda was over ten thousand kilometers tall, its exterior entirely white, and the whole tower faintly emanated an aura that calmed the heart and stilled the mind.

Lu Qingshan followed King Tawen up the steps and through the great door of the Secret Scripture Tower, and soon arrived at the tower's first floor.

"This first floor is the reception level," King Tawen said with a smile.

And just at this moment…

"Marquis Qingshan, my lord!"

A voice like clanging metal rang out, and a female Jinjiao clanswoman clad in dark-gold battle armor walked toward Lu Qingshan: "I am Angelina, the receptionist here in the Secret Scripture Tower! We have already received the order of Elder Klimens. My lord may choose trial-reading copies of secret scriptures here in the Secret Arts Tower up to a total of one hundred billion contribution points. Once you have made your selection, we will transmit the full secret scriptures to you!"

"One hundred billion?" King Tawen, standing to one side, could not help but stiffen slightly, then could not hold back a gasp of astonishment.

Seeing this, Lu Qingshan could not help but ask in confusion: "King Tawen, you are…"

"Marquis Qingshan, please forgive me — I was merely a little surprised!"

King Tawen quickly explained: "Contribution points among our Jinjiao race are usually extremely precious, and their uses are vast. They can be used to purchase secret scriptures, weapons, treasures, and even to buy large numbers of guards, to request instruction from the strong, and so on… In short, many treasures that cannot be bought with ordinary currency can in fact be bought with contribution points. If you convert contribution points into the currency of the human race, roughly one thousand contribution points can be exchanged for one Primordial unit!"

"I am ashamed to say that, after cultivating for countless long years, the race contribution points I have accumulated to this day amount to only a little over one hundred billion!"

Hearing these words, Lu Qingshan finally understood why King Tawen had gasped in astonishment just now.

The Jinjiao race had given him a quota of one hundred billion contribution points — that was the equivalent of one hundred million Primordial units. Even many newly-King-Sealing Undying Divine Spirits of the human race, with their entire fortunes added together, would amount to no more than less than one billion Primordial units.

One must remember, that was the entire fortune accumulated over endless years!

As for ordinary-race newly-King-Sealing Undying like King Tawen, their fortunes were even lower.

And the fact that the Jinjiao race was willing to let him pick out such a precious gift — even if it were only secret arts that cost the Jinjiao race nothing — was enough to let him feel the sincerity of the Jinjiao race.

One must remember, the people of the Jinjiao race did not know that he possessed a clone, and even less did they know that he possessed the heaven-defying Myriad Heavens Chat Group.

With the talent Lu Qingshan had displayed so far, he only had the talent to become a King-Sealing Undying at best, and might not even reach the peak of King-Sealing. Yet the Jinjiao race was still willing to bestow upon him such a heavy gift.

And this heavy gift from the Jinjiao race happened to be precisely the gift Lu Qingshan needed most at present.

After all, he was now at the stage of creating his own secret arts. If he could draw on many secret arts for reference, the speed at which he created his own secret arts would naturally be greatly increased!

Thinking of this, Lu Qingshan quickly said earnestly: "The help of the Jinjiao race and of Elder Klimens — I, Lu Qingshan, will certainly engrave it upon my heart!"

Hearing Lu Qingshan's words, King Tawen and Angelina, standing to one side, both showed smiles on their faces as well.

After all, was not the reason their Jinjiao race was hosting Lu Qingshan's party so warmly precisely to build good relations with Lu Qingshan and his companions?

Soon, Angelina continued: "Marquis Qingshan, my lord, while you go to choose your secret arts, there is one more matter we must remind you of… and that is, unless you have obtained the permission of our Jinjiao race's elders, you absolutely must not transmit any one of these secret arts from these secret scriptures to anyone else!"

"I understand!" Lu Qingshan quickly nodded and said.

"Very well, please follow me, Lord Lu Qingshan!"

After saying this, Angelina directly led Lu Qingshan up the stairs to the second floor of the Secret Scripture Tower.

The Secret Scripture Tower was divided into a total of 999 floors; the higher one went, the more precious the secret arts became.

Lu Qingshan could now choose secret arts totaling no more than one hundred billion contribution points, so naturally the more precious the better. He therefore quickly followed Angelina to the very top floor of the Secret Scripture Tower!

At the entrance to the 999th floor there was still a custodian, whose main duties were to verify whether clansmen had the authority to enter, and to prevent anyone from deliberately damaging these trial-reading copies.

"Human Marquis Qingshan!"

The custodian at the door gave Lu Qingshan a slight nod of greeting: "I have already received Elder Klimens's order. You are qualified to enter this floor!"

"Many thanks!" Lu Qingshan replied with an equally slight smile and nod.

Following Angelina into the 999th floor of the Secret Scripture Tower, Lu Qingshan quickly looked around.

He saw bookshelves packed densely all around, each one ranging from sixty to ninety meters in height!

"Marquis Qingshan, my lord!"

Angelina introduced, gesturing at the bookshelves around her: "This 999th floor is the highest floor of the entire Secret Scripture Tower. Gathered here are the most precious trial-reading copies of secret scriptures of our Jinjiao race — a total of 91,723 volumes!"

"The cheapest set among these secret arts is worth 98 million contribution points, and the most expensive set requires 1.6 billion contribution points. You may browse freely and choose as you wish, so long as the total contribution points do not exceed one hundred billion!"

As she said this, the female Jinjiao clanswoman Angelina's voice could not conceal her envy.

"Mm!" Lu Qingshan gave a slight nod.

The cheapest set, at 98 million contribution points, was nearly one hundred thousand Primordial units. Even the top-tier secret art Lu Qingshan had created himself, "Heavenly Thunder Break," was probably a little inferior compared to it; as for "Soul-Slaying Sword," which had not yet reached the top tier, there was even less need to mention it.

As for Angelina's claim that the most precious secret arts of the Jinjiao race were gathered here, Lu Qingshan merely listened and let it pass.

Setting aside the "Seven Transformations of Spirit Derivation" created by the Jinjiao race's leader Herodotus, even secret arts created by other Universe Venerables — there probably were not too many of those here either.

Of course, for the current Lu Qingshan, the secret arts here were already more than sufficient for his use.

Even if the Jinjiao race were to give him the "Seven Transformations of Spirit Derivation" now, he would be utterly unable to comprehend it.

"But speaking of which!"

Lu Qingshan thought to himself: "Herodotus has not yet fallen, so the 'Seven Transformations of Spirit Derivation' should not yet have fallen into the hands of our human race, right!"

But this was not the time to be thinking about such things, so Lu Qingshan quickly began selecting the secret arts best suited to himself.

The first ones he looked at were the three most precious manuals on this floor of the Secret Scripture Tower, each with an exchange price reaching an astonishing 1.6 billion contribution points — that is, 1.6 million Primordial units — absolutely secret arts that only beings at the Universe Venerable level could create.

Of these three manuals, aside from one called "Golden Soul," which began from the Law of Metal and delved deeply into the Origin Law of Space, combining the two to create a combat secret art, the other two were both secret arts concerning the Origin Law of Time. One of them was even a secret art that studied both the Origin Laws of Lightning and of Time simultaneously, and naturally held great reference value for Lu Qingshan. He therefore chose these two sets of secret arts directly.

After finishing looking through the three most expensive sets of secret arts, Lu Qingshan quickly browsed through the many other secret arts, in order to determine which were more suitable for himself, and finally selected the best portion from among them.

Although there were many secret arts on this floor, Lu Qingshan was after all a Marquis-Sealing Undying, fully capable of dividing his attention to browse through thousands, or even tens of thousands, of secret arts simultaneously.

So before long, Lu Qingshan had already selected the secret arts best suited to himself, with the total exchange price adding up to nearly one hundred billion contribution points.

Among these secret arts, six sets were created by elders of the Jinjiao race, and the rest were mostly secret arts created by King-Sealing Undying and Marquis-Sealing Undying. They would absolutely be of great help to Lu Qingshan in creating his own secret arts going forward.

Soon, Lu Qingshan informed Angelina, the Jinjiao clanswoman who had been following at his side the whole time, of the names of all the secret arts he had selected.

"Marquis Qingshan, my lord, I have recorded all the secret arts you have chosen. The total exchange price is 99.987 billion contribution points. You may exchange for all of them!"

After recording Lu Qingshan's selections, Angelina quickly said: "I have already uploaded the information on these secret arts. Next, please follow me to the first floor of the Secret Scripture Tower to wait. I believe these secret arts will be delivered very soon!"

"Good!" Lu Qingshan gave a slight nod, then quickly followed her down the stairs.

When Lu Qingshan arrived at the first floor of the Secret Scripture Tower, the Jinjiao clansmen delivering the secret arts also quickly arrived. The leader was a King-Sealing Undying, whose aura was already no less than that of Lu Qingshan's teacher, Lei Huanwang.

The King-Sealing Undying at the head quickly looked toward Lu Qingshan and said: "Human Marquis Qingshan, we have come by order of the elders to deliver these secret scriptures."

"You may read them here. After you have finished, return the secret arts to us. And we hope that after you leave our Jinjiao race, you will not transmit the secret arts to outsiders!"

"I understand!" Lu Qingshan nodded quickly and said.

Then that Hei Fengwang flipped his hand, and a spatial ring quickly appeared before him.

Lu Qingshan took the spatial ring, a wisp of divine power quickly seeped into it, and then he saw the large number of secret manuals within the ring's space.

With a quota of one hundred billion points, Lu Qingshan exchanged for over three hundred sets of secret techniques, which naturally added up to quite a lot.

Fortunately, as a Marquis Immortal, Lu Qingshan's memory was naturally extraordinarily astonishing.

Just like that, after browsing through the secret techniques for half a day, Lu Qingshan quickly memorized the contents of all these secret techniques.

But to master them all and integrate them, and then create secret techniques that belonged to himself, that was not something that could be accomplished in a day!

After memorizing all the secret techniques, Lu Qingshan quickly put all these secret techniques back into the spatial ring, then sent the ring back to that Hei Fengwang.

"Marquis Qingshan, are you certain you've memorized everything?" the other party quickly asked.

"Mm!" Lu Qingshan gave a slight nod in response.

Seeing this, that Hei Fengwang quickly nodded to Lu Qingshan in acknowledgment, then led a group of his subordinates and swiftly transformed into hazy phantoms before vanishing.

And after leaving the Secret Scripture Tower, Lu Qingshan did not immediately follow King Tawen to leave the Laso Continent, but instead hurried first to the temple of Elder Klimens to express his gratitude.

And this act of Lu Qingshan's also greatly satisfied that Klimens Elder, who even promised Lu Qingshan that if he could once again come to the Lord Jinjiao clan's territory in the future after becoming a Hei Fengwang, he would still offer guidance to Lu Qingshan once.

After all, for Klimens, whether it was guiding Lu Qingshan or bestowing upon Lu Qingshan many secret techniques, the Lord Jinjiao clan's willingness to give so much was originally a kind of investment in Lu Qingshan.

As long as Lu Qingshan could remember this favor, when Lu Qingshan became a high-ranking member of the human clan in the future, he would naturally look after their Lord Jinjiao clan.

Of course, if Lu Qingshan turned out to be an ingrate who accepted benefits but did not remember the kindness, then there was nothing they could do about it.

And Lu Qingshan's current performance greatly satisfied Klimens, so he was naturally willing to give Lu Qingshan another benefit.

But before that, Lu Qingshan also had to prove that he had the potential worthy of the Lord Jinjiao clan's continued investment!

(End of this chapter)