Chapter 181: Unchanged Slave Mentality

"There is inevitably a connection and a good relationship between the Hall Master and the Spirit Hall.

If one day the Spirit Hall makes a major move, then the Hall Master likely won't be able to stay out of it.

Since that is the case, choosing the help of the Spirit Hall and owing a favor is really nothing at all.

What's more, a Title Douluo, even if it is just a Title Douluo hidden in the shadows, has far greater capabilities than some Soul Saint or the like."

"Smart!" Zhou Heng gave Lou Gao a thumbs up, then put away the two tokens, and began to ask Lou Gao how he had dealt with the members of the Strength Clan and Tai Tan.

Facing Zhou Heng's inquiry, Lou Gao explained his handling of the situation in every detail.

Those members of the Strength Clan who did not directly participate in the battle were ordered by Lou Gao to help the Blacksmith Association smelt metal and transport various ores, while those who directly participated in the battle were bound with iron chains and locked up to prevent riots.

As for Tai Tan, after being given simple treatment, he was simply fed a large amount of laxatives under Lou Gao's arrangement, leaving him vomiting and purging until he was dehydrated, to the point where he even lost consciousness.

Lou Gao prepared to bind him with iron chains, then send someone to feed him just a little water and rice every day to ensure he didn't die.

Tai Tan's son, the middle-aged Spirit Master who had helped Tai Tan up, was released by Lou Gao, allowing the Strength Clan to go back and prepare items to redeem their people at the Blacksmith Association.

As for those blacksmiths who followed Tai Tan, they were punished; the light ones had their status lowered and were fined heavily, while the heavy ones were directly expelled from the Blacksmith Association and announced to the continent.

These expelled blacksmiths would face difficulties when purchasing raw materials in the future, and would be unable to join any large blacksmith shops; from then on, at best, they could only rely on their craft to hammer iron in small villages for the rest of their lives.

After finishing his account of how these people were handled, Lou Gao's expression changed, and he took a piece of parchment from his Soul Guidance Device and handed it to Zhou Heng.

"Hall Master, while dealing with those people, I discovered this on Tai Tan.

Although on the surface, ever since Tang Hao hammered Qian Xunji to death back then, the four single-attribute clans had severed their relationship with the Clear Sky Sect because they were abandoned by the sect, in reality, Tai Tan, or rather the Strength Clan, seems to still have a lingering connection with the Clear Sky Sect.

This time, Tai Tan coming to snatch things was not just his own intention, but also had the implication of several Elders who snuck out of the Wutian Sect to hunt for Soul Rings."

"The Strength Clan still has a relationship with the Clear Sky Sect?"

Zhou Heng took the parchment and immediately saw the handwriting on it, which carried a tone of reprimand.

The person who wrote this letter called themselves the Seventh Elder of the Wutian Sect, who had broken through to level 90 on Clear Sky Peak some time ago and was only one Soul Ring away from becoming a Title Douluo.

The writer used a reprimanding tone to accuse Tai Tan of being somewhat slack toward the Wutian Sect recently, and that the Strength Clan had been negligent in helping Wutian Sect Spirit Masters secretly hunt for Soul Rings, then ordered Tai Tan to find a suitable fire-attribute Power-type Soul Beast over 50,000 years old.

At the end of the letter, this person calling themselves the Seventh Elder of the Wutian Sect specifically stated that Tai Tan was merely a slave to Tang Hao, while he himself was Tang Hao's uncle, possessing a very noble status, and told Tai Tan not to ruin himself.

Although the possibility of this letter being forged by someone else could not be ruled out, after reading it, Zhou Heng felt that this letter was likely real.

After all, the Clear Sky Sect originally had seven Elders, but because of Tang Hao, they had a bloody battle with the Spirit Hall; two died, leaving only five, and they had now been in seclusion for ten years.

Zhou Heng, who knew the original plot, was clear that the five remaining Elders of the Wutian Sect were like settings added later, each one a Title Douluo, intended to narrow the gap in strength between the Clear Sky Sect and the Spirit Hall as much as possible.

Zhou Heng calculated that the Seventh Elder, the one in the original work who said his son was killed by Tang Hao, the Blazing Sun Douluo, breaking through to level 90 and obtaining his ninth ring, seemed to match up in terms of timing.

In reality, Spirit Masters need to obtain Soul Rings to break through barriers; otherwise, even a God-level Martial Soul like the Six-Winged Angel with Innate Spirit Power of level 20 could not break the rules of the world.

The Wutian Sect only sealed the mountain and did not come out because of the agreement between Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen, but to say they would therefore truly give up on letting their clansmen go out to hunt spirits and improve their strength—I'm afraid even a six-year-old child who just awakened their martial soul on the side of the road wouldn't believe that.

The Clear Sky Sect definitely had many disciples sneaking out to hunt spirits over these years, but perhaps they were just hidden well?

Well, Zhou Heng thought about it and put a question mark on this.

Qian Daoliu didn't care about affairs, and the Spirit Hall now listened to Bibi Dong. And in Bibi Dong's heart, she even had a bit of good feeling toward Tang Hao, who had heavily wounded Qian Xunji and given her the opportunity to take revenge.

To put it bluntly, that Bibi Dong could suppress the Wutian Sect on the surface was already her suppressing the disgust in her heart to put on a show for others in the Spirit Hall who didn't know the inside story.

She probably wished she could send Tang Hao a banner of praise in her heart.

Suppressing the Clear Sky Sect was actually just a matter of keeping up appearances; Gan Daoliu had no way to care about this, and Bibi Dong simply didn't care about it at all.

As long as the Clear Sky Sect's Spirit Masters didn't brazenly summon their martial souls in public or directly attack those belonging to the Spirit Hall, Bibi Dong would likely turn a blind eye.

So in reality, how well these people were hidden still needed a big question mark; it was very likely that someone had reported it long ago, but no one cared at all.

What Zhou Heng didn't expect was that Tai Tan truly had no backbone at all, choosing to continue being a dog for the Clear Sky Sect even after having been abandoned by them, secretly helping the Clear Sky Sect's Spirit Masters hunt spirits.

However, thinking about it carefully, it made sense; although the Clear Sky Sect once had many affiliates, the only ones worth mentioning were the four single-attribute clans.

The remaining small affiliates were basically sold out by the Clear Sky Sect during the battles with the Spirit Hall, and even if they were lucky enough not to be destroyed by the Spirit Hall, they would definitely never lean toward the Clear Sky Sect again.

Among the four single-attribute clans, the one best at gathering information was the Speed Clan, and the Speed Clan was also related to the current Sect Master, but Bai He was clearly too lazy to care about those things, and now the whole clan was struggling for a living.

Anyone with even the slightest connection to the Clear Sky Sect wouldn't live so miserably.

As the clan that fought against the main force of the Spirit Hall back then, the Breaking Clan suffered heavy losses because of the Clear Sky Sect's cutting ties, and the whole clan now held a grudge against the Clear Sky Sect; the clan leader Yang Wudi, in particular, disliked the Clear Sky Sect twelve-fold, so naturally, it was impossible for them to continue being dogs for the Wutian Sect.

Niu Gao looked stupid, but in reality, he was quite shrewd and wouldn't do that kind of thankless work.

The Defense Clan had done a lot of projects as contractors over the years, and their clan strength was recovering; one would have to be brain-damaged to continue bowing their heads and being a dog for the Wutian Sect that had betrayed them.

Looking at it this way, only the Strength Clan could continue to secretly exert help for the Clear Sky Sect while bowing their heads, all because of their clan leader, Tai Tan.

After all, the Strength Clan were also Power-type Spirit Masters, but because of their extreme stat allocation, they could only absorb the Soul Rings of Thousand-Jun Ants, which happened not to conflict with the Clear Sky Sect's soul-hunting needs, and they could also collect a lot of information on Power-type Soul Beasts.