Chapter 14: Main Line

The Qi brothers' decisive departure let Fengyun and the others breathe a sigh of relief; although fighting is forbidden in the mine cave, as long as there are no casualties, it's fine.

But the Qi brothers didn't go far; after circling around, they again used an escape technique to conceal their forms and sneaked back.

"Big brother, it seems they haven't noticed that." The two brothers communicated via voice transmission.

"Natural treasures belong to the virtuous; this shows they're not up to it!" The eldest of the Qi family said proudly.

A year ago, the two brothers coincidentally killed a member of the Demonic Sect and obtained a black egg from his body.

After a rough inspection they found nothing wrong with it, and they thought it might be a spiritual beast brought from another realm, so they wanted to hatch it themselves.

But unexpectedly, when the eldest Qi poured his spiritual power into the black egg, a surge of yin cold energy rushed back, unexpectedly boosting his strength greatly, and the black egg consequently dissipated.

Finding nothing amiss, they secretly sought information about the black egg; after several months of searching, they confirmed it was a specialty of the Demonic Sect.

Thus, over the following time they secretly killed Demonic Sect members, and after a year of effort they obtained only three such eggs.

The three newly obtained black eggs were split evenly between them, and their strength both reached the peak of Foundation Establishment. Despite their mediocre talent, they even faintly saw a path to Golden Core.

Three months ago, by a chance occurrence, they came to the mine where they had once dug for their first fortune; they had originally intended to refine some cloud energy to repair their magical treasures, but instead they discovered a black egg.

This discovery delighted them immensely; if they could find more black eggs, not only Golden Core, but even the Great Dao would be within reach!

From then on, each month they could find a black egg, and their strength grew ever closer to that of Golden Core cultivators. Although they considered themselves low-key, they still caused an abnormality noticed by Cloud Sea City.

Today they went as usual; upon entering they headed straight for the deepest part of the mine shaft, where black eggs usually form. Moreover, after multiple refinings they could even faintly sense the black eggs' positions.

But before they could get there, they heard fighting sounds ahead.

The two silently exclaimed, "Oh no."

However, when they arrived they saw the black qi egg they had been awaiting smashed by a single punch; shaken in mind and spirit, their whereabouts were exposed, but fortunately no one else had discovered the black egg's usefulness.

So the two gave a casual reply and left, then returned concealed to verify whether anyone had truly discovered the black egg's use.

Seeing that the three were merely mining cloud energy, they stayed in place for another half an hour before leaving.

Only after they left did Fengyun, who was frantically blasting the mine wall, finally let out a breath.

When Fengyun accidentally shattered the black egg, he indeed jumped; a puff of black smoke blew into his face just as he had exhausted his strength, and the smoke sprayed him directly.

Then the system sounded a series of messages.

【Demonic qi erosion detected! Capturing!】

【Capture complete, +200 points】

Fengyun instantly rejoiced; this thing could actually earn points, so it seemed he wouldn't have to fight those damned demon souls anymore.

Then an even greater surprise arrived: the main line mission was activated, and a flood of messages left him unable to react for a moment.

【Main line mission activated!】

【Main line mission: Eliminate the demonic qi hidden in the four great Cloud Sea regions! Reward: a return-to-city item! Ten thousand savior points!】

【Side quest one: Purge the demonic qi within infected individuals! Each unit of demonic qi rewards one hundred points!】

【Reward: 'Great Demonic Transformation Method' (Note: can only absorb the demonic qi within a target's body).】

A return-to-city item!

Could it be that I can actually return to Earth? Fengyun's mind instantly flashed with a series of plots about returning to the city to show off and slap faces, plus some hehehe.

He wiped his saliva and continued reading.

According to the mission description, the thing that could threaten the world is this so-called demonic qi, but the system can directly reclaim it to ensure his safety; the remaining problem is merely locating the demonic qi.

When mentioning demonic qi, one easily thinks of the Demonic Sect that was just wiped out; alas, I heard the Demonic Sect's headquarters left not even scraps.

Wait, the Demonic Sect is gone yet the mission remains, which means the Demonic Sect didn't produce the demonic qi; rather, the demonic qi created the Demonic Sect.

If that's the case, then the Demonic Sect could hardly be unable to make a comeback.

Just as he thought that, he inadvertently glanced at the exit; his investigative technique activated automatically, and he discovered that the two who had left had actually sneaked back, and even more conspicuous were their identities.

【Foundation Establishment, demonic qi infected.】

They are Demonic Sect members! Fengyun suddenly recalled the two persons he had Xiao Yi keep an eye on—could it be them?

Could their purpose be the demonic qi here? Fengyun felt a earth-shaking conspiracy was unfolding.

He was startled by his own bold thought, but then remembered that his identity was still a major figure of the Demonic Sect, so he might still be able to profit from the chaos.

Speaking of which, he was quite interested in those curse techniques of the Demonic Sect; of course, avoiding direct combat would be best.

He waited until they left before stopping his cloud-mining action, and gazed at the still-unscattered remnants of the cloud beast before him.

"Looks like this is it." Zhang Wu swayed back and forth, holding a cloud essence.

Fengyun also took out a cloud essence from the spiritual cloud, and indeed there was no abnormal reaction.

"It seems it will take some spiritual energy to fully form; you can use it to feed the cloud essence, which will enhance its spirituality a bit." Zhang Wu suggested.

Cloud beasts often hunt cloud essence to boost their own spirituality, and conversely, cloud essence can make use of the spiritual material left behind by dead cloud beasts to improve itself.

In the end, a half-bird-beak-shaped piece of spiritual material truly remained, ungraded.

Following Zhang Wu's instructions, Fengyun gave the cloud essence to the little thing as food; it slowly wrapped it within its body, then remained motionless awaiting digestion.

Zhang Wu said: "This is enough to feed it for half a month, but you'd better stock up on some spiritual qi as well."

Zhang Wu then went on about the precautions for raising cloud essence, showing how much he likes raising this stuff, though he also would talk about other things, such as his experiences adventuring in the Cloud Sea.

"Those two earlier, Brother Wu seems quite familiar with them." Having said that, Xiao Yi also went along with his line of questioning.

"You mean the Qi brothers? I was indeed quite familiar with them before, but that was several years ago. Since they went to adventuring in the Cloud Sea, this is the first time I've seen them." Zhang Wu said.

"Still, you can tell they've been through a lot; their killing aura is too heavy."

"To dare to adventure in the Cloud Sea means one has resolved to face death, so even a heavy killing aura doesn't indicate whether one is righteous or evil."

"Yeah, this killing aura could belong to someone who specializes in the way of slaughter, and that wouldn't be an exaggeration." Xiao Yi said; previously he often saw such types in prison, where the bunch of fools whose minds were controlled by killing aura often started fights over trivial matters, causing the Cloud Sea City jail to constantly be overcrowded.

The two chatted while mining cloud energy, and Fengyun also continued with full force; with no suspicious figures tailing them, he could freely leave his fist prints everywhere.

But upon close observation, one would notice that he was merely repeating his hand movements mechanically, his attention nowhere to be found.