Chapter 297: Cang Hai Military Tribunal Verdict

The contract for crafting the superior-grade magic treasure dao robe was signed, and the Shadow Bead was sent to the other party by express delivery.

"Five million low-grade spirit stones… I really don't have that many."

Jiang Ding rummaged through his storage jade pendant for a long time, tallying up just over eight hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones — still a huge shortfall.

But there were plenty of other things.

The Void Crystal Copper had already been commissioned from a shop for refinement; after subtracting what was used to craft the Sky Warplane and what was sold off, there were still over two hundred kilograms left — enough to forge one magic treasure.

Third-tier Electromagnetic Spirit Gold, about ten tons, all of it artificial spirit gold refined over the years by commissioning immortal sects to process grey iron ore, then purifying and smelting it with other materials.

This is useful.

After reaching Jin Dan, the Electromagnetic Main Cannon between his brows needs to be upgraded from a top-grade magic artifact to a magic treasure, which requires adding third-tier Electromagnetic Spirit Gold. Upgrading it from a low-grade magic treasure to a superior-grade magic treasure requires at least several hundred tons of third-tier Electromagnetic Spirit Gold and several hundred years.

The Void Crystal Copper is also useful — the warship's coating needs it. This kind of material is easy to sell but hard to buy back.

The Toxic Flow Silver Mine is still too scarce; no matter how much there is, it can't be sold — it's a strategic-grade mineral.

Other spoils like top-grade magic artifacts won't be counted — their value is too low.

"Only this is left."

Jiang Ding took out a cloud-colored glazed flying sword about a foot long, with an obvious notch on it and damaged array patterns.

Mid-grade magic treasure, Departing Cloud Sword, from the rebellious cultivator Li Hai Zhen of the Departing Cloud Sect.

"It's a natal magic treasure — others using it will drop it a minor grade, making it equivalent to a low-grade magic treasure… Best to just melt it down and recycle the materials. Originally it could have been worth over ten million low-grade spirit stones; now it's worth about three to four million in rare materials."

"Forget it, I need the money. Sell it."

Jiang Ding thought for a moment, no longer fussing over the gap between rare materials and spirit stones, and decided to sell it directly — he should be able to get a premium of around seven million low-grade spirit stones.

After paying for the dao robe, there was still a little left over.

"I'm so poor…"

Jiang Ding sighed mournfully.

He had originally planned to learn from Li Hai Zhen and set up several dozen teleportation arrays as escape backups, but now he could only… wait a while longer until he'd saved up enough.

The blue-gold great tree shimmered brilliantly.

Jiang Ding gently closed his eyes, drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth within a ten-kilometer radius, entering a state of cultivation.

"Ding!"

"The Cang Hai Military Tribunal has concluded the trial of your case. Would you like to view the details?"

The Array Spirit's voice came through.

"View it."

Jiang Ding opened his eyes.

"Xu Qiwu, late-stage Jin Dan cultivator, ID number…, on September 20 of the Common Era year, was sentenced by the Cang Hai Military Tribunal to death for the crime of betraying the Immortal Sect and the crime of massacring citizens, with lifetime deprivation of political rights, to be carried out immediately."

"Xu Zhengliu, mid-stage Jin Dan cultivator… crime of betraying the Immortal Sect, crime of massacring citizens, sentenced to death."

"Wang Yuanpeng, mid-stage Jin Dan cultivator… death penalty."

"Liu Jian, Jin Dan cultivator… death penalty."

"Li Denggao, late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, participated in helping Brother Xuanwu cultivators of the Xuanwu Heavenly Palace smuggle themselves into the Cang Hai Minor Realm, circumstances relatively minor… fixed-term imprisonment of thirty years…"

A thick stack of names refreshed in the message.

A total of eight Jin Dan cultivators were sentenced to death, among them three surnamed Xu, two surnamed Wang, and three of other surnames — all deeply involved in the matter.

The rest were mostly sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from ten to one hundred and twenty years.

"Xu Jia, mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, ID number…, after review, was not deeply involved, sentenced to five years' fixed-term imprisonment."

"That guy looks innocent — was he implicated?"

Jiang Ding's expression turned odd, then he realized.

This kind of dirty, grueling work wouldn't be done by a third-generation direct descendant of the Xu clan's Soul Transformation cultivators.

The assassins from the Shadow Kill Hall of the Xuanwu Heavenly Palace must have been desperate, sneaking directly into his storage ring.

As for how a Jin Dan cultivator on the verge of collapse along with his divine soul could infiltrate a storage ring sealed layer upon layer with divine sense imprints — that would depend on the depth of cooperation between the Xu clan and the Xuanwu Heavenly Palace.

This was also the reason he was guilty.

"With these people dead, the Xu and Xu Wang clans should keep quiet for a few hundred years."

Jiang Ding Zi murmured to himself.

Jin Dan cultivators aren't cabbages in a field — they can't just grow back after dying. If those behind-the-scenes Nascent Soul cultivators refuse to come out and take risks, there won't be many people left to use.

He closed his eyes and entered a state of cultivation.

Several days later, Jiang Ding rose. The branches and leaves of the blue-gold great tree contracted according to their roots, transforming into a foot-long flying sword that he tucked into his sleeve; the silver-white great bird among the tree shadows vanished into the half-space layer.

A grey-blue escape light flew through the sky, soon gradually gathering with escape lights flying in from all directions, landing on the open ground of the Pinde Sect classroom, each person holding a printed test paper in their hands.

"How many points did you get on the final exam?"

"109 points…"

Everyone's divine senses peeked around — looking at their own, then at others' — like big children nearly forty years old.

"How many did you get?"

Jin Lingfeng asked curiously.

Her divine sense swept over Jiang Ding's test paper, and she exclaimed in amazement: "141 points! That's not right — when you were at the Departing Cloud Sect, aside from fighting you were always cultivating. How could you possibly score higher than us?!"

"Is there some shady business going on?"

An Siyan also crowded over, picked up Jiang Ding's test paper, and examined it carefully.

"So that's how it is."

After a long while, she understood: "You passed through the three sects' cultivators, supervised and restored the livelihood of the people in the Departing Cloud Sect, didn't do anything yourself, and then got a high score — higher than ours who were actually working our fingers to the bone."

Her face was full of unwillingness.

Directing the cultivators of the three sects to do work—things like this they were also doing, but not in such meticulous detail, and the three-sect cultivators didn't carry it out as thoroughly either; many of the restoration projects could only be called passable, sixty or seventy out of a hundred.

"I paid for it."

Jiang Ding smiled, took back his own test paper.

This was the truth: in order to inspire the enthusiasm of the three-sect cultivators, and to build better permanent water conservancy projects, and to set up a relatively efficient mortal administrative bureaucracy for Li Country, he had poured in tens of thousands of low-grade spirit stones, and it wasn't simply empty words and harsh laws alone.

Jiang Ding raised his head, looking toward a patch of sky.

At the edge of the sky, seven or eight kilometers away, a fiery-red escape light flew past, the aura of early-stage Jin Dan, wearing a blue Daoist robe, gold-rimmed glasses on his head, his bearing scholarly and profound.

His body suddenly stiffened.

After a long while, he finally recovered, erupted his magic power, and fled from this direction like a rabbit.

"Liu Zhiyuan?"

Jiang Ding frowned slightly, projected his figure before the two of them, and asked: "That mortal citizen of Li Country, Gu Shixiong is his graduate student, right? He's fine?"

"He's fine."

"It has nothing to do with him—this fellow is too well-versed in the laws of the immortal sects."

Jin Lingfeng gave a cold snort of laughter.

"That Gu Shixiong, whose soul has been dead for almost a month now, didn't have anything of value in it. The memories about Liu Zhiyuan were all fervent discussions about equality, ambiguous stuff.

Over at the Canghai Minor Realm it was similar, and then Gu Shixiong thought there was some heaven-shaking opportunity here, so he came over eagerly on his own, and even made up a lie that the Equality Society was going to interfere, leading the Li Yun Sect around by the nose and gaining quite a few benefits."

"All of that was his own brilliant improvisation."

"The Canghai Military Tribunal went over it again and again, and simply couldn't find anything to convict Liu Zhiyuan on."

Jin Lingfeng reined in her mockery, speaking with a hint of admiration.

(End of chapter)