Chapter 705

Iron Cauldron Mountain City.

Wu Tie hesitated, wondering whether to rename Iron Cauldron Mountain City. He didn't much like its current name, feeling it wasn't as pleasant as Yuzhou's Peaceful City.

"Peace," "Peace."

What a pleasant name!

Iron Cauldron Mountain City just gives off a fierce, overbearing air, too much of a domineering vibe, which Wu Tie doesn't care for.

The enormous hall, cast entirely of dark iron, black and lustrous, exuded a sturdy metallic feel. Sunlight streamed in through the door and window cracks, drawing bright bands of light in the dim hall.

Pei Feng sat behind a desk on one side, piled high with a large number of documents.

As the Supreme Commander of the Capital City Military Directorate and the highest commander of the Secret Martial Guard, Pei Feng is swamped, receiving a large volume of documents each day awaiting her handling.

Pei Feng is also extremely conscientious and stubborn; she won't let anyone interfere in her affairs and insists on doing them perfectly. Thus, these days she's constantly dealing with documents, a sea of paperwork, with no time to idle.

A strand of hair fell from her forehead, and a strand of sunlight slid across her face.

The pale yellow warm sunlight dyed that fallen strand of hair a light yellow; the reflected light shone on her cheeks, making them faintly glow, giving her a more resolute and heroic appearance.

But this scene, as seen by Wu Tie, was tenderly beautiful.

Leaning sideways on the throne, he tilted his head to watch Pei Feng for a while, then Wu Tie leisurely raised his cup and gulped down a mouthful of good wine with a "glug."

Civil affairs, military affairs, worldly matters—all have attendants and subordinates laboring, while Wu Tie has become the biggest idler in Wuguo, possibly the sole idler in the entire nation.

But gathering so many subordinates and taking in so many aristocratic clans isn't it just for the sake of ease?

Wu Tie isn't greedy for power; frankly, he's muddled and compelled, having arrived at this point—formerly the Duke of Yuzhou, then Prince An, now Martial King—without ever actively pursuing power.

The times make the person; the strangeness of worldly affairs reaches no greater extent.

The wine is fine wine, originally a top-grade import the Great Martial Royal Family bought at great expense from Great Wei—"Iron Blood Flamboyant." It hits the throat like a blade, burns like fire in the belly; after its potency swirls a few times, it turns into endless sweetness and rich fragrance that rushes upward, making every pore steam and the veins throb as if one had just fought on the battlefield for three days and nights.

After pleasantly exhaling a breath of wine, Wu Tie gazed out from the half-open hall door.

From this angle, one can see the lofty eaves of the former Great Martial Ancestral Temple.

The Great Martial Ancestral Temple, which Wu Tie had inherited, merely saw the Wu family's ancestral tablets removed and replaced with those of the Huo clan of Flower Insect City. This was unavoidable, given that Wu Tie now bears the identity of Huo Xiong.

However, the Huo family's ancestral tablets are merely placed in the first hall as a display.

In the innermost part of the ancestral temple, where countless seals shroud the deepest inner hall, Wu Tie enshrines the spirit tablets of the Wu family's ancestors, directly moving the ancestral tablets from the Wu Family Fortress on Phantom Cloud Mountain into that hall for worship.

At this moment, Wu Tie clearly feels strange powers continually surging from the Wu family's ancestral tablets toward himself.

Half a month ago, after Wu Tie formally sealed and issued the edict to free all slaves in Wuguo, a thread of extremely fine strange power seeped from the void into the Wu family's ancestral tablets, underwent a strange transformation, and then was beamed into Wu Tie's body.

Over the past half month, as Wuguo's grassroots officials continually freed slaves, built cities and villages, registered them, granted surnames and names, helped them form families, and taught them basic ethics, this strange power has grown ever stronger.

This power, Wu Tie is intimately familiar with.

The day he assumed the position of Sect Leader of the Wu Family Sun Sect, while at the Wu Family Fortress, this power already supported Wu Tie, causing the extraordinary lotus seed he obtained from the Three Kingdoms battlefield to sprout.

And now the power bolstering Wu Tie is vastly greater—by thousands, even tens of thousands—than when he was at the Wu Family Fortress.

Moreover, as time passes, with more slaves freed, the civilian household registries of Wuguo ever increasing, and Kong Chengxi continually spreading Wu Tie's name among those slaves, this power grows ever larger and more miraculous.

With this power's support, the changes to Wu Tie's flesh and divine fetus need not be detailed; suffice to say, every moment he grows stronger.

The true marvel of this power is that Wu Tie and the heavens and earth grow ever more attuned, ever closer, as if water and milk blend—he feels himself to be a place of heaven and earth, and heaven and earth to be himself.

Upon the already condensed solid jade-disc projection, the three thousand great lotus leaves and eighty-four thousand small lotus leaves faintly glow with divine light; each leaf bears manifest phenomena—earth, water, fire, wind, sun, moon, stars—varied visions vivid and lifelike, continuously radiating a rich, substance-like Dao resonance in all directions.

Wu Tie's body, every moment, continually integrates the patterns of the Great Dao.

The Great Dao patterns corresponding to the Three Thousand Great Dao have been fully inscribed in Wu Tie's body, down to the tiniest particles where the markings faintly appear; the Great Dao patterns corresponding to the Eighty-four Thousand Heterodox Paths are ninety-nine percent completed.

Wu Tie only felt his body was like a mass of glazed glass.

Each additional strand of Dao pattern inscribed therein makes this body ever more lustrous and transparent; Wu Tie's divine fetus, 'seeing through' his body, can ever more clearly 'see' the true face of heaven, earth, and the universe.

Moreover, in these past few days, Wu Tie clearly felt some extraordinary changes in his body that differed from the norm.

For example, when a person walks, the air produces wind resistance.

The faster a person moves, the greater the wind resistance.

The stronger a person's divine soul, the more clearly and sharply they perceive the existence of wind resistance.

But in these past few days, Wu Tie discovered that when he ran, walked, or even flew at high speed using evasion techniques, wind resistance disappeared.

Wind resistance vanished, or rather, 'the wind no longer obstructed Wu Tie.'

There were many, many similar changes.

Feeling the ever stronger strange power continually merging into his body, Wu Tie laughed and drank another cup of Iron Blood Flame, chuckling, he furtively turned his head to admire Pei Feng's earnest, vigorous little face.

Three months later, Huang Lang happily held a storage ring and walked into the hall where Wu Tie was.

"My lord, all slaves in the 128 prefectures surrounding Iron Cauldron Mountain City have been registered and become citizens of Wuguo. Here is the original copy of their household registers; please review it, my lord."

Huang Lang carefully placed the storage ring before Wu Tie.

Wu Tie took the bracelet, swept his divine soul inward, and saw inside piles upon piles of household registers, like small mountains.

"One hundred twenty-eight prefectures..." Wu Tie smiled and spoke; at that moment, the strange power transmitted from the Wu family's divine seat suddenly surged a hundredfold, like the Yangtze River, roaring as it rushed into Wu Tie's body.

Boom!

Boom boom!

Boom boom boom boom boom boom!

Nine consecutive thunderous booms echoed within Wu Tie's body; the hall trembled slightly, and the void quivered for a moment.

The Dao patterns corresponding to the Three Thousand Great Daos and the Eighty-Four Thousand Heterodox Paths were all completely and thoroughly fused with Wu Tie's body.

Wu Tie's body radiated with divine light, his entire form turning into a mass of chaotic spiritual light in that instant.

His Dharma body was fully accomplished.

He was only one step away from the Divine realm.