Chapter 139: To the Li Capital

Chen Mo circulated his Inner Qi, splitting off a wisp to probe into the Storage Bag; the Storage Bag used by an Innate Expert was indeed much larger than the one he currently had on hand.

It was over two zhang long, one and a half zhang wide, and nine chi high.

The most important thing was that it was still a Storage Bag, not a Storage Ring.

Therefore, he could easily open it; if it were a Storage Ring, it would be much more difficult.

The various items inside the Storage Bag were placed relatively messily, so Chen Mo carefully sorted and counted them one by one.

There were the most Mirage Spirits; there were ninety-three in total that reacted to his Inner Qi, which he could confirm were definitely Mirage Spirits.

As for the remaining fifty-seven, they did not react to his Inner Qi; whether they were the real thing or not, he would know once he tasted a little later.

In addition, there were twenty-five portions of various treasures of heaven and earth.

The so-called treasures of heaven and earth also had a classification of grades, with the ninth grade being the lowest and the first grade being the highest.

However, only alchemists or spirit plant masters among Qi Refiners could perform such detailed classification.

Chen Mo could only make a rough judgment by sensing the dense Heaven and Earth Power within these treasures of heaven and earth.

He did not know their specific grades, as he had never specialized in studying this aspect.

However, the greatest value of these treasures of heaven and earth to him was being swallowed and refined into Blood Qi.

Admittedly, refining them into pills might be more suitable for absorption.

But for him, these problems did not exist; the medicinal effect would be better if he ate the whole plant, and there would absolutely not be a single trace of medicinal power lost.

Furthermore, there were ninety-six Blood Essence Stones, sixteen bottles of pills of various sizes, and thirteen types of poisonous powders.

There were two Dharma Artifacts obtained from unknown sources, as well as a precious sword nearly four chi long.

The precious sword could conduct Inner Qi; although it was not as good as the Giant Spirit Divine Hammer and the Seven Absolutes Bow, it was more than a notch better than the Autumn Dragon Spear, and could be considered a quite good weapon.

Besides this, there were many miscellaneous items in the Storage Bag, including various gold and silver and silver banknotes.

There were food and wine, bones of unknown animals, some shriveled poisonous insects, and two medical books and one poison book.

They spoke of how to collect herbs and make poisons, and there were many annotations from this Innate Martial Artist, mainly recording how to make poisons and prepare antidotes.

Chen Mo was not very interested in these things, but he still planned to take a look if he had free time.

Having many skills is never a burden; he did not necessarily have to use poisons, but knowing more about them would never be a bad thing.

After sorting out the miscellaneous items in the Storage Bag, Chen Mo was in no hurry to swallow the Mirage Spirits or refine the Blood Essence Stones.

Although the Innate Experts who came to attack the mission had all been killed, the journey ahead could not be said to be absolutely safe.

Before arriving at the Li Capital, nothing could be said for sure.

After taking stock of his gains, Chen Mo walked out of the tent to look around; most of the mission members were there, and he arranged for people to fire signal arrows into the sky from time to time.

The Imperial Court of Great Li also sent men to search nearby, trying their best to find everyone.

After waiting here for three days, all the mission members returned one after another.

Except for a few unlucky ones who accidentally broke their hands or feet, no one was in any life-threatening danger.

This was also normal; every person in the mission could be said to be a Martial Artist, and even those Ministry of Rites officials had practiced quite profound Inner Family Kung Fu.

With a certain level of cultivation and strength, plus being sent out of the core area of the battle in advance, it was extremely unlucky to be injured, and even more impossible to lose their lives.

It could only be said that they were able to survive safely because the Emperor had indeed made preparations in advance, dispatching an Innate Expert to use their means to throw everyone out one by one.

Otherwise, except for those few Post-Heaven Martial Artists who could run faster, everyone else in the mission would likely have been unable to escape death.

With everyone returned, Chen Mo arranged to continue on the road.

The Ministry of Rites of Great Li sent new carriages and horses for their use.

The speed of the new carriages and horses was obviously much slower, only able to travel two hundred-odd li a day.

Fortunately, the rest of the journey was fairly stable, and the mission arrived at the Li Capital.

To welcome their arrival, the Capital City had long been under martial law; there was not a single person on the streets, only fully armed Imperial Guards responsible for guarding.

"I ask that all envoys first enter the embassy to rest; after the auspicious time the day after tomorrow, our Emperor will summon all envoys again to exchange state credentials."

The Minister of Rites of Great Li took the initiative to lead many Ministry of Rites officials to welcome Chen Mo and the others.

His attitude and expression were indifferent, appearing to be just a routine matter.

"Good." Chen Mo nodded lightly and, under his guidance, walked toward the embassy.

Before this, the two countries had never had the habit of stationing envoys with each other, let alone a dedicated embassy.

The so-called embassy was just a residence in the Inner City of the capital.

Although the capital of Great Li was located in the northern border, the weather was not very cold, and it was a rare stretch of fertile land for a thousand li.

The prosperity of the Li Capital was by no means inferior to Great Gan.

It was just that because of the martial law imposed today to welcome the mission, the prosperous scene inside the city could not be seen.

Walking into the embassy, feeling the layers upon layers of connected Arrays all around, and the National Destiny Dragon Qi entrenched in the Palace City not far away.

Only then did Chen Mo heave a sigh of relief, and his entire mind and spirit relaxed a lot.

The two Innate Experts of the Great Gan Imperial Court naturally could not enter the Inner City, as that was too close to the Palace City.

They were invited to a royal villa in the Outer City, personally hosted by several Innate Experts.

While called hosting, it actually also contained a bit of vigilance.

Although no one thought that these two Innate Experts would suddenly go crazy and want to attack the Emperor of Dali.

But one can never be too careful.

The passing of an Emperor is an extremely serious matter for any Imperial Court.

If an Emperor dies, someone else can of course come to be the Emperor, but the problem is that if there is no edict to determine who will succeed to the throne, it will inevitably trigger extremely serious power struggles.

Sometimes even with an edict there might be a struggle, let alone without one.

Therefore, guarding the safety of the Emperor is naturally an extremely important matter.

…………

After arranging the rest and guard duties for the delegation, Chen Mo walked into the main courtyard of the embassy.

Great Li had previously intended to arrange many servants and maids to serve at the embassy, but Chen Mo declined them all.

He dared not guarantee that these people were ordinary maids and servants, rather than those specifically arranged to spy on the embassy's intelligence.

The information revealed in the daily chatter of the many envoys and officials in the embassy might seem chaotic and trivial, but if gathered by someone with ulterior motives, it could become quite valuable intelligence.

Let alone maids and servants, for this period of time, Chen Mo had tried his best to ensure that neither he nor anyone else in the delegation had too much contact with the people from the Great Li Ministry of Rites.

Otherwise, if they were tricked into revealing information, they might be at a disadvantage in the upcoming negotiations.

Chen Mo fetched clear water himself, took off his armor, and washed up.

After washing, he changed into a set of clean clothes kept in his Storage Bag.

He felt his whole body become three parts lighter.

Wearing armor was always rather heavy, and moving around was not very agile; besides, having rushed all the way here, he did not know how much mud and sand he had stained himself with.

After washing up, he walked into the cultivation chamber to the side and released his Inner Qi to protect his surroundings, preventing walls from having ears.

Chen Mo took out his spoils from the Storage Bag of that Innate Expert and began to swallow and absorb them one by one.

Among them were some things suspected to be Mirage Spirits, which he tested one by one.

Only two pieces of black jade with special textures were not; they were just like ordinary jade, without anything special.

The rest were all Mirage Spirits, which could be transformed into the power of Qi and Blood when swallowed into the abdomen.

In fact, many Mirage Spirits, after being refined, were not limited to transforming into the power of Qi and Blood; they could also increase Inner Qi, or even increase the cultivation of a Qi Refiner.

However, there was no need to worry; swallowing them directly had the best effect.

Having now experienced another Mortal Transformation, the Transformation Pearl required more Blood Qi power.

Although the Heaven and Earth Furnace could continuously draw Heaven and Earth Power from the world and transform it into Blood Qi power to send into the Transformation Pearl.

But it was not just a drop in the bucket; the progress was truly too slow. If he only relied on the Heaven and Earth Furnace, it would take at least three or four years for him to accumulate enough Blood Qi for the next Mortal Transformation.

Refining Mirage Spirits and Blood Essence Stones could greatly accelerate this progress.

After he swallowed more than one hundred and forty Mirage Spirits, plus the Blood Qi power accumulated through the Heaven and Earth Furnace before.

The Blood Qi power of the Transformation Pearl finally reached over ten percent.

Chen Mo did not hesitate; he took out those medicinal pills and Blood Essence Stones and swallowed and refined them one by one.

He dared not be certain of the efficacy of these pills, whether they were for healing or for enhancing a Martial Artist's cultivation.

There was a certain risk in rashly absorbing the medicinal power, so it was better to refine them all and send them into the Transformation Pearl.

After dealing with the Blood Essence Stones and medicinal pills, Chen Mo took out many treasures of heaven and earth.

The so-called treasures of heaven and earth were all formed by bathing in the essence of the sun and moon and the power of heaven and earth.

Martial Artists refine them with Blood Qi, and the treasures of heaven and earth transform into the power of Blood Qi; Qi Refiners use Spirit Power to refine the treasures of heaven and earth, which then transform into Spirit Power.

Whichever power is used to refine them, the essence of the sun and moon within the treasures of heaven and earth will enhance that power.

Therefore, whether they are Martial Artists or Qi Refiners, they all have a need for treasures of heaven and earth.

Some treasures of heaven and earth tasted very good, sour and sweet with the fragrance of fruit, while some were very bad, even very bitter; even Chen Mo was made to frown by the bitterness and could only grit his teeth and swallow them hard.

Having basically digested the gains from this time, the Blood Qi accumulated in Chen Mo's Transformation Pearl also reached about thirty percent.

In addition, he still had two Dharma Artifacts and one weapon used by Martial Artists in his hands that had not been sold.

Once he returned to Great Gan, he would find a way to exchange these things for resources, which should be able to increase his own Qi and Blood by another ten percent.

One has to say, Innate Martial Artists are truly wealthy; if he could kill a few more Innate experts from the Demonic Path or Alien Races, it would be enough to gather the Blood Qi needed for his own transformation.

Of course, Chen Mo also knew that this was just his wishful thinking; Innate Experts were not that easy to kill.

Even if he really wanted to find an opportunity to kill, he would have to wait until he had broken through to the Innate Realm.

Taking a deep breath to calm his mind, Chen Mo sat in meditation to regulate his breathing and began to practice.

When tired of practicing, he would practice the Six Harmonies Halberd Technique, or take out the medical books and poison books he had previously obtained to study.

After one day of stable practice, the Attendant from the Great Li Ministry of Rites whom he had met before came to visit the next day.

At the same time, he brought a piece of news: the date for the Emperor of Dali to grant them an audience had to be postponed.

Without a doubt, it must be the noble families causing trouble in the middle.

Chen Mo had no interest in interfering; that was the business of the people of Great Li, and it was not his place to meddle.

As far as he was concerned, if they could negotiate, they would negotiate; if they could not, he would still have his share of the credit when he went back.

It was just that although he had no intention of interfering, there were always some descendants of Great Li's noble families who took the initiative to come to the door to provoke him, wanting to challenge him, the chief envoy, to severely diminish his face.

Chen Mo was not interested in this; he closed his doors to all of them, completely ignoring those noble descendants, and just practiced steadily.

After all, there was no benefit in winning, it would just be a waste of energy for no reason.

And those noble descendants did not have the guts to force their way into the embassy, so they could only give up helplessly.

Another ten days or so passed like this, and the Great Li Ministry of Rites finally sent definite news.

Chen Mo would ascend the hall tomorrow to have an audience with the Emperor of Dali and exchange state credentials.

(End of this chapter)