Chapter 359

After Ye Liuyun successfully condensed the seed of sword intent, he didn't linger long at the Holy Martial Academy, and took a flying boat straight to the Heavenly Fortune Dynasty.

He had promised the Heavenly Fortune King to exchange crystal cores for divine-grade essence blood. Now, after receiving news, the Heavenly Fortune King's side has already gathered a lot, so he needs to go over to collect a batch.

Upon arriving in the Heavenly Fortune Dynasty, Ye Liuyun, according to the alliance's exchange rate for essence blood, directly collected the crystal cores, then gave some of the essence blood he held to the Heavenly Fortune King.

The Heavenly Fortune King was overjoyed. "Now our Heavenly Fortune Dynasty's strength will increase again!"

"I see there are plenty of Yuan Dan Realm crystal cores. Have the corpse demons been active lately?" Ye Liuyun asked.

When the Corpse Demon was mentioned, the Tianyun King's face immediately grew grim. "Indeed! This thing is like an endless killing. Lately it has started to strike back, seizing a lot of barbarian territory. Fortunately, this time several major sects sent people out to suppress it in time, pushing them back without breaching the border! If not for that, there wouldn't be so many Crystal Cores."

"It's good that they act! With them present, the Corpse Demon won't spread like last time." Hearing this, Ye Liuyun felt much relieved. In fact, the fact that they can keep the northern border under control at this level is already the best; elsewhere, it's worse than here.

"Senior brother Song Yi and senior sister Li Mengxi, how have they been lately? To what cultivation realm have they reached?" Ye Liuyun asked concernedly about the other two Holy Sons.

"Both of them have reached the mid‑stage of the Sea Transformation realm. These refined blood will also be theirs, and they can further improve later." The Tianyun King was evidently very satisfied with their progress.

Ye Liuyun left two holy artifacts for them, asked the Tianyun King to deliver them, and then returned directly to the Northern Domain Alliance.

Qiong Qi still needed to go out to find a fire source and couldn't keep him waiting, so he had to hurry back and, together with Qiong Qi, probe the Alliance's secrets.

The Dragon Emperor's Primordial Power that he and Lei Ming had sealed at this time had already been unsealed. However, since they had just broken through and were afraid that consecutive breakthroughs would destabilize their realms, they temporarily resealed that power, intending to wait for a period of combat before breaking through again.

This time Ye Liuyun finally returned to his own peak to settle in.

After returning, Lin Feier was nowhere to be seen. Only a note she had left was found. It turned out that after her breakthrough she had gone out to train with Mo Ya and no longer waited for Ye Liuyun. Ye Liuyun didn't dwell on it.

Later, he began researching with Qiong Qi how to investigate the Secret Realm.

The Hell Mingshe revealed to Ye Liuyun the spot where its Divine Sense had vanished, which was beneath a Grand Hall at the Alliance's center. Qiong Qi's Divine Sense probed there and found a Formation blocking it.

"How about it? Can you break the Formation?" Ye Liuyun asked.

"It's a piece of cake. Easy to break. But there are too many Metal Puppets here, and their Divine Sense is too strong! How can we avoid their detection?" Qiong Qi asked.

Ye Liuyun thought for a moment and borrowed Wu Qingcheng's Invisibility Cloak. "How about this?"

"A holy‑artifact level one? If we encounter Metal Puppets of the Heavenly Gang Realm five‑fold or higher, it's not guaranteed!" Qiong Qi hesitated.

"No problem, let's upgrade these holy artifacts first!"

Ye Liuyun explained: "The Alliance offers a service to upgrade weapons and treasures; we can use it to upgrade these items first."

So Ye Liuyun gathered everyone and had them bring out their weapons and treasures for upgrading.

In the end, aside from his own sword, Lei Ming's dagger, Shi Yuan's bone staff, and the swords of Wu Qingcheng and Yu Er, everything else was taken to the Grand Hall for upgrading.

When they asked at the Grand Hall, Ye Liuyun's highest permission allowed upgrades only up to Spirit Grade; only after he breaks through to the Heavenly Gang Realm can weapons or treasures be upgraded to the Revered Grade.

Thus, the items Ye Liuyun finally took for upgrading were Qiong Qi's Formation Flag, Invisibility Cloak, Mitian Realm, Weapon‑Breaking Mace, Soul‑Suppressing Tower, Silver Hammer, plus Ru Yue's sword and shield. Shi Yuan's weapon was directly exchanged for three Spirit‑grade implements, without further effort to upgrade.

When Ye Liuyun paid the fees, he tried to trade unused weapons and other resources first; only when those were insufficient did he exchange Crystal Cores. He believed the Crystal Cores were valuable within the Alliance and could be used to obtain better items, so he kept them for resource exchanges.

Then he took out some additional resources to trade with the Tianyun King, and returned to his residence to await weapon retrieval.

【9】 (Note: This line was already translated as 【9】 above; duplicate omitted.)

News of Ye Liuyun's return to the Alliance quickly reached the Jin Family. Jin Lei and his men, who were heading to the East Sea to ambush him, were doomed to miss again. Jin Lei, about to rush to the East Sea, was so angry he nearly spat blood.

He issued a command to the Jin Family disciples within the Alliance, ordering them to devote all effort to eliminate Ye Liuyun.

During the period Ye Liuyun was away from the Alliance, the Jin Family had already gathered many troops, hoping to catch Ye Liuyun off guard by sheer numbers.

At that moment, Liu Tianfeng, the master of Duantian Pavilion, emerged from seclusion. He had been in retreat; after emerging, he learned that Duantian Pavilion had suffered massive losses and began investigating. He then immediately contacted the Jin Family disciples, preparing to join forces with them to deal with Ye Liuyun.

A Liu Family disciple reminded him: "The Clan Chief has ordered us to observe for now!"

"Don't worry, with me taking the lead, I guarantee Ye Liuyun won't escape this time. Do you think I'm one of those Jin Family trash? Chasing after Ye Liuyun! I'll set a trap and wait for him to crawl in…"

Ye Liuyun was completely unaware of all this. After the Metal Puppets upgraded their weapons, he did not act immediately with Qiong Qi; instead, he teleported back to the Martial Arts Academy, left the Dragon Palace at Tianqian Feng, and didn't even bring Lei Ming.

He only stored Qiong Qi in the Storage Ring and then returned to the Alliance.

The interior of the Alliance was truly dangerous; once Ye Liuyun was discovered, there was an 80‑90% chance he couldn't escape the onslaught of so many Metal Puppets of the Heavenly Gang Realm. Therefore, Ye Liuyun couldn't let them accompany him on the venture.

After returning, he immediately donned the Invisibility Cloak, slipped out of his peak, went to the Grand Hall beneath which the Hell Mingshe had indicated, and activated his Golden Pupil to examine the Formation there. At the same time, he transmitted what he saw to Qiong Qi, letting Qiong Qi direct him in breaking the Formation; this was slower but much safer.

During the breaking of the Formation, Ye Liuyun repeatedly detected the Divine Sense scans of Metal Puppets, and even once encountered a Metal Puppet patrol.

Each time, Ye Liuyun would halt all movement, standing perfectly still until their patrol passed, then resume. The Invisibility Cloak had now been upgraded to Spirit Grade, fully capable of evading detection by Heavenly Gang Realm strongmen.

"This won't work! Breaking a Formation requires a single, uninterrupted flow; your stop‑and‑go means we have to start over each time! The puppets' scans are too dense, you simply don't have enough time!" Qiong Qi complained.

At that moment, a puppet carrying a corpse walked toward the Formation.

"How about we follow this corpse inside?" Ye Liuyun asked.

"What if it's dangerous the moment we go in?" Qiong Qi retorted.

At that point, the puppet had dragged the corpse close and used a Token to create a gap in the Formation.

"No time! We'll go in now!" Ye Liuyun said, stepping forward directly.

The puppet threw the corpse through the gap, and Ye Liuyun, seizing the moment the puppet was about to close the gap, leapt in as well. The Formation then closed.

The Metal Puppet seemed to sense some movement, instantly reopened the Formation, peered inside, saw only the single corpse and no one else, then sealed the Formation again and left.