Chapter 98: Whispers of a Thousand Years

Inside the rest cabin of an E-class starship.

Only after the starship accelerated to sub-light speed did the members of the Xuan Kong squad finally breathe a sigh of relief.

On this Lone Wolf Island, sub-light speed was already the maximum speed achievable by numerous powerful beings and starships.

Unless heading to a universe transit point, even a King-level Immortal would be impossible to break through to light speed and enter the Dark Universe on the Outer Battlefield, which was filled with various interstellar dust and debris.

Once everything was settled, the members of the Xuan Kong squad turned their gaze toward Lu Qingshan.

"Lei Bao!"

The first to speak was the tallest, the Surging Waves Marquis: "Why did you suddenly burn your Immortal Divine Power?"

"Is something wrong?"

Lu Qingshan asked with slight confusion: "I saw that leader of the Qiu Jia Hou clan was quite powerful, and I couldn't take him down in a short time, so I directly tried burning some Immortal Divine Power!"

In fact, this was the first time Lu Qingshan had fought by burning Immortal Divine Power in reality, but he had already simulated it many times in the Virtual Universe, so naturally, there was no unfamiliarity.

"Actually, there's nothing wrong with it!"

The Surging Waves Marquis continued: "However, burning Immortal Divine Power is generally only done when fighting for one's life. That Qiu Jia Hou clan leader was merely a High-level Army Lord; you only needed to shatter his Divine Body a few more times, and you would have smoothly killed him. There was absolutely no need to waste your precious Divine Power!"

Lu Qingshan wanted to say something more, but at that moment, the squad leader, Captain Xuan Konghou, also spoke up.

"Lei Bao!"

Captain Xuan Konghou looked at Lu Qingshan and asked directly: "You burned Immortal Divine Power to fight this time; you must have lost quite a bit of Divine Power, right?"

"Actually, not much!"

Lu Qingshan sensed his Divine Power, then said: "Probably lost around 3.2%!"

At that time, when Lu Qingshan burned Immortal Divine Power to launch an attack, he directly burned three percent of his Divine Power; otherwise, he could not have unleashed such terrifying might!

As for the self-destruction of that Qiu Jia Hou clan leader, it probably cost him only 0.2% of his Divine Body; this was because he failed to dodge in time and was hit head-on by that shockwave.

"That's not a small amount!"

Captain Xuan Konghou nodded slightly, then looked at the vice-captain, Iron Blood Marquis, beside him and said: "Iron Blood, you come explain it to Lei Bao!"

"Lei Bao!"

Iron Blood Marquis looked at Lu Qingshan and said quite solemnly: "Burning Immortal Divine Power is a technique only those who have obtained immortality can possess. Army Lord Immortals like the Great Elephant and others can at most self-destruct a portion of their Divine Body!"

"Although burning Immortal Divine Body can increase our strength a hundred or a thousand times in a short time, after we become Immortals, our souls have completely fused with our Divine Power. Therefore, burning Immortal Divine Body is equivalent to burning our souls! If fifty percent of the Divine Body is burned, it is equal to our souls being directly reduced by half! If the soul suffers too much loss, we might not even be able to maintain a complete consciousness, and it is very likely we will fall into a deep slumber."

"So under normal circumstances, we rarely burn Immortal Divine Body to fight for our lives, unless we encounter a powerful enemy or a great benefit!"

"Lei Bao, let me put it this way: with your current realm of Early-stage Marquis and the size of your Divine Body, to restore the Divine Power you just lost, if you rely solely on the self-recovery function of the Divine Body, it will take at least tens of thousands of years! Of course, there are many treasures in the universe that can accelerate Divine Body recovery, but those treasures are all extremely expensive cosmic rarities!"

"According to our squad's previous experience, to restore your Divine Body within a thousand years, you would need to spend at least around two thousand Hunyuan Units of wealth; to restore it within a hundred years, you would need around ten thousand Hunyuan Units; if you want to fully restore it within a few days, you would need to spend around one hundred thousand Hunyuan Units!"

"And for killing that High-level Army Lord this time, you could only obtain one billion Military Merit in total. Even adding the loot obtained from him, it probably wouldn't reach one hundred thousand Hunyuan Units. This is completely a losing deal!"

"Yes, Lei Bao!"

The Surging Waves Marquis beside him also said: "Actually, even for me, as long as the squad doesn't encounter danger, I rarely burn Immortal Divine Power to fight in my daily life! After all, once Divine Power is lost, it requires a huge amount of time and resources to restore, so it is definitely better to slowly kill opponents!"

"So that's how it is!"

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

Of course, although Lu Qingshan said this with his mouth, he did not care too much in his heart.

After all, he possessed the Infinite Divine Sea Clone!

Although the diameter of the Infinite Divine Sea Clone was not large now, its recovery ability was still quite good!

The 3.2% of Divine Body Lu Qingshan just lost could be fully restored by the Infinite Divine Sea Clone in just a few days; there was absolutely no need to worry too much about it.

"Actually, for our squad, the best fighting method is still for multiple people to deal with one enemy simultaneously."

Iron Blood Marquis continued: "By dealing with enemies this way, once the enemy's Divine Body is shattered, everyone can control a portion of the enemy's Divine Body with their Divine Power, making it impossible for the opponent to recondense their Divine Body and self-destruct!"

"Of course, the enemy's shattered Divine Body also has very strong resistance. In a one-on-one situation, even if you can shatter the enemy's Divine Body, you still cannot prevent them from recondensing their Divine Body, which is why coordinated effort from multiple people is needed!"

"This way, our squad's losses can be minimized, and at the same time, the gains can be maximized!"

"Of course, if we can have an Immortal-level auxiliary life form to cooperate, killing an Army Lord-level enemy would be much simpler!"

"However, cultivating an Immortal-level auxiliary life form requires far too many resources. Even within our squad, not many people have cultivated an Immortal-level auxiliary life form!"

"That's because your requirements are too high!"

Shadow, unable to hold back, spoke up from the side: "Each of you either wants to cultivate a High-level Army Lord-level auxiliary life form or a Marquis-level auxiliary life form; naturally, success is much harder!"

"If everyone just cultivated a normal Immortal-level auxiliary life form, I'm afraid everyone would have succeeded long ago!"

Hearing this, the Surging Waves Marquis beside him couldn't help but laugh and say: "Everyone is just thinking of getting it done in one step to save a bit more resources!"

Hearing the words of the Xuan Kong squad members, Lu Qingshan also nodded silently in his heart.

Before Lu Qingshan arrived at the Outer Battlefield, many members of the Xuan Kong squad had already been roaming the Outer Battlefield for over a hundred thousand years.

With their strength, accumulating two or three million Hunyuan Units of wealth was still very simple. Even if they only used a small portion of that wealth to cultivate auxiliary life forms, they could cultivate Immortal-level auxiliary life forms.

Just like the Kash Lu Qingshan cultivated before, it only cost a few hundred thousand Hunyuan Units.

However, a normal Immortal-level auxiliary life form does not provide much help against High-level Army Lords and Marquis-level Immortals, so it is obvious they wanted to accumulate more wealth to cultivate even more powerful auxiliary life forms.

"Alright!"

Squad leader Captain Xuan Konghou waved his hand to interrupt everyone's conversation, then said with a smile: "Regardless, our squad has gained a powerful partner this time!"

"Come, let us all raise our cups to celebrate Lei Bao's victorious start!"

"Cheers!"

The members of the Xuan Kong squad were overjoyed and raised their cups one by one, drinking them all in one gulp.

Although Lu Qingshan relied on burning Immortal Divine Power to kill that High-level Army Lord of the Qiu Jia Hou clan, his single strike that annihilated eight percent of the opponent's Divine Body was enough for the members of the Xuan Kong squad to understand his powerful strength.

With the strength Lu Qingshan displayed, he was enough to rank in the top three within the Xuan Kong squad.

Even the Surging Waves Marquis, who possessed a massive Divine Body, would not be his match in short-term bursts of power!

Of course, if it came to burning Immortal Divine Body to fight for one's life, as long as they didn't encounter a King-level Immortal, the Surging Waves Marquis would absolutely be the one to last the longest in the Xuan Kong squad!

"Our harvest this time wasn't bad either!"

Captain Xuan Konghou continued, "Although some of those Qiu Jia Hou clan strongmen self-detonated, they still left us quite a few spoils!"

"However, Lei Bao contributed the most this time, and he even burned his immortal divine power, so let's let him take the lion's share of the spoils. The rest of us will split the remaining twenty percent!"

"Captain, that won't do!" Lu Qingshan hurriedly refused.

One had to know that even without him, the members of the Xuan Kong squad encountering that team of Qiu Jia Hou clan strongmen would still have been able to kill them smoothly.

The reason they handed it to him was simply to see his strength.

And on the Extraterritorial Battlefield, after a battle, martial artist squads would mostly uniformly collect the spoils, then wait until they were safe before distributing them according to contribution.

Lu Qingshan killing those Qiu Jia Hou clan immortals this time had already taken a big advantage in military merit, so logically he should certainly get less in the spoils distribution.

But now…

But at this moment, the other members of the Xuan Kong squad also all spoke up.

"No problem!"

"It should be!"

Lu Qingshan had burned his immortal divine body this time, so according to their squad's rules, he naturally had to take the lion's share of the spoils, so the others had no objections at all.

Seeing this, Lu Qingshan could only choose to accept.

However, he also made up his mind in his heart that in the future, once the Xuan Kong squad encountered a crisis, even if it meant his second avatar falling, he would definitely help the others.

Just like that, the members of the Xuan Kong squad quickly divided up the spoils obtained in this battle, and Lu Qingshan also quickly checked his military merit.

"Master!" The voice of the auxiliary intelligence Hearing Shenlan rang in Lu Qingshan's mind: "You obtained a total of 1.185 billion military merit this time!"

On the Extraterritorial Battlefield, killing an elite Realm Lord yields 1 million military merit, killing a Realm Lord General yields 10 million military merit, a junior Military Lord yields 100 million military merit, a senior Military Lord yields 1 billion military merit…

Lu Qingshan had just killed two immortals and over a dozen Realm Lord-level strongmen, so he was able to accumulate so much military merit in one go!

The one with the most military merit among them was naturally that Qiu Jia Hou clan leader with the strength of a senior Military Lord—he alone contributed 1 billion military merit to Lu Qingshan!

……

After the celebration ended, Captain Xuan Konghou soon said with a smile: "Through this battle, we have already seen Lei Bao's strength, so I feel we no longer need to waste time on this Lone Wolf Island!"

"I think so too!"

Vice-captain Tie Xue Hou also nodded and said: "There are really too few strongmen on this Lone Wolf Island. We've been here for so many days and only encountered two teams of alien-race strongmen. Continuing like this, the speed of accumulating military merit will definitely slow down quite a bit!"

"Yeah, Captain, let's hurry to the main continent!"

"Lei Bao, what do you say?" Captain Xuan Konghou looked at Lu Qingshan and asked.

"I've long wanted to go adventure on the Yan Yan Ji Continent's main continent!" Lu Qingshan quickly answered with a smile.

He wanted to temper himself through battle, so naturally he had to fight against even more powerful enemies.

"Alright then, we'll head straight to the main continent next!" Captain Xuan Konghou quickly gave the order.

……

After making the decision, Lu Qingshan and his group immediately changed direction, directly boarding the spaceship and heading toward the Yan Ji Continent's main continent.

It's just that Lone Wolf Island is quite far from the Yan Ji Continent's main continent. To reach the main continent without performing a universe traversal into the dark universe, it would indeed take quite a bit of time.

Of course, while traveling, the members of the Xuan Kong squad would also use detectors to observe the situation along the way. Once they encountered suitable targets, they would naturally stop to accumulate military merit.

In the blink of an eye, more than two months had passed, and the Xuan Kong squad finally arrived at the Yan Ji Continent's main continent.

During these more than two months, the Xuan Kong squad encountered two more suitable opportunities to act.

One was a squad composed of five immortals and seven Realm Lords. Although they had more people than the Xuan Kong squad, there were no titled immortals in this squad, and they were ultimately wiped out by the Xuan Kong squad;

The other time was a squad composed of five immortal gods. Although they had fewer people than the Xuan Kong squad, it included two titled immortals. In the end, the members of the Xuan Kong squad only killed one immortal Military Lord. As for the other two immortal Military Lords, they were protected by the two alien-race titled strongmen. In the subsequent standoff, after discussion, the Xuan Kong squad still decided to let the other side off, because if they really fought to the death, even if the Xuan Kong squad could kill them, they would definitely have to pay a terrible price!

After arriving at the Yan Ji Continent's main continent, the battles the Xuan Kong squad encountered quickly became more frequent.

It's just that among the squads adventuring on the Yan Ji Continent's main continent, most were led by titled immortals, so without burning immortal divine power and fighting desperately, the Xuan Kong squad's harvest wouldn't be too great either.

Just like that, time kept passing, and in the blink of an eye, another thousand-plus years had gone by.

During these thousand-plus years, the Xuan Kong squad had also experienced thousands of battles, big and small.

In these battles, with Lu Qingshan's joining, the overall strength of the Xuan Kong squad had indeed improved quite a bit.

Of course, strongmen emerged endlessly on the Yan Ji Continent, and there were quite a few squads stronger than the Xuan Kong squad, so the Xuan Kong squad also encountered several rather dangerous battles.

……

"Lei Bao, I really owe you a life this time!"

In the spaceship's rest room, the slender Nightmare said with a look of relief: "Just now, if you hadn't burned your immortal divine power in time to help, I'm afraid even if I didn't fall, I would definitely have been seriously injured!"

Nightmare was the only illusionist in the Xuan Kong squad, and was usually protected by everyone during battle.

And in the battle just now, Nightmare still teamed up with Cold Heart to deal with a senior Military Lord, but that senior Military Lord was actually not affected by Nightmare's illusion in the slightest, and even directly took several attacks from Cold Heart, then charged straight to Nightmare and furiously self-detonated!

If directly taking the self-detonation of a senior Military Lord, Nightmare, who had the weakest defense in the Xuan Kong squad, even if she didn't fall, would definitely be seriously injured.

At this critical moment, Captain Xuan Konghou had even begun to burn his immortal divine power to help block that senior Military Lord's self-detonation, but he was quite far from Nightmare at the time, and even burning his immortal divine power it was hard to quickly provide support;

In the end, it was Lu Qingshan, who was closer, who burned his immortal divine body, then rushed at high speed to Nightmare's side and saved her!

"Hahaha, we're all teammates, me saving you is only natural!"

Lu Qingshan said with a smile: "If you really want to thank me, just treat me to a drink later!"

"No problem!"

Nightmare soon said with a soft smile: "I have a jar of 'Nine Spirit Liquid' that I've treasured for over three million years. Today I must make sure Lei Bao drinks to his heart's content!"

"Hahaha…"

Hearing Nightmare's words, all the members of the Xuan Kong squad laughed.

Even Vice-captain Tie Xue Hou teased: "Nightmare, the captain and I both burned our immortal divine power back then. Aren't you going to treat us to a couple of drinks?"

"Don't worry!"

Nightmare again said with a soft smile: "Everyone will get some!"

After saying this, the Nightmare quickly took out a jar of fine wine that had been treasured for many years, then poured a full large cup for every member of the Xuan Kong squad, and handed the remaining half-jar-plus of fine wine directly into Lu Qingshan's hands: "Lei Bao, the rest is all yours—drink it whenever you want!"

"Speaking of which, Lei Bao, your instantaneous burst speed has gotten a lot faster recently!"

Captain Xuan Konghou could not help but exclaim: "Just now, the instantaneous burst speed after you burned your immortal divine power probably already surpasses mine by a notch!"

"That's right!"

Tie Xue Hou, at one side, likewise exclaimed: "Lei Bao, your burst speed is really too fast. Just now, I hadn't even reacted yet, and you had already rushed to the Nightmare's side!"

Listening to everyone's exclamations, Lu Qingshan merely said with a smile: "Actually, I've been creating a set of body-art secret technique all along, and recently I've finally achieved something, so my speed has increased a lot!"

Having roamed the Extraterritorial Battlefield for over a thousand years, Lu Qingshan had long since discovered his own shortcoming—'body art'!

Precisely because of this, over this past period of time, Lu Qingshan had been constantly perfecting a body-art technique he had previously created, and had even reluctantly activated a precious Enlightenment Blessing function within the chat group.

It was not until over thirty years ago that Lu Qingshan's body-art secret technique could be considered to have achieved minor success, smoothly stepping into the top-tier level, and this also made his body art incomprehensibly bizarre, with instantaneous burst speed far surpassing that of cultivators of the same rank!

After a bout of idle chat, the members of the Xuan Kong squad quickly began to distribute the spoils of war.

After putting away the spoils he had been allocated, Lu Qingshan quickly asked in his mind: "Hearing Shenlan, how much military merit and wealth have I accumulated since coming to the Extraterritorial Battlefield?"

"Master, your current military merit is only 8.837 billion!"

The voice of the auxiliary intelligence Hearing Shenlan rang out in Lu Qingshan's mind: "However, the spoils you have accumulated are quite a few—up to now, you already have over four hundred thousand Hunyuan units!"

"Not bad!"

Over this recent period of nearly a thousand years, because Lu Qingshan was tempering himself through battle, whenever he encountered a fight, he would always take the initiative to seek out the opposing side's marquis-tier immortals, so the military merit he accumulated was actually not that much.

But because Lu Qingshan was at a disadvantage in accumulating military merit, he did receive a bit of compensation in the distribution of spoils.

"Back then, Lu Xiusi was also a marquis-tier beginner, yet roaming the Extraterritorial Battlefield for a hundred thousand years he could only accumulate around two million Hunyuan units. However, the place he roamed at the time probably wasn't as dangerous as the Flame Sacrifice Continent!"

Lu Qingshan secretly thought: "I've already accumulated over four hundred thousand Hunyuan units in just over a thousand years now—over a hundred thousand years, wouldn't it reach forty million Hunyuan units?"

Of course, the speed at which Lu Qingshan accumulated wealth could far surpass that of Lu Xiusi back then. Apart from the battle zones being more dangerous, it was also because the Xuan Kong squad he was in was somewhat stronger.

The squad Lu Xiusi had formed back then had at its strongest only Lu Xiusi himself, one marquis-tier beginner, and besides him, three immortals including Ross.

With such a lineup, even encountering three or four commander-tier immortals, it would be very hard to annihilate them all!

But the Xuan Kong squad was different!

Although with more people the spoils distributed would be less, the powerful experts they could deal with also increased correspondingly, so the harvest was naturally quite a bit more!

(End of this chapter)