Chapter 54: Chapter 52: The Corpulent Youth

At the entrance to the Earth-level Spiritual Ore mine, the two garrisons belonging to the Void Sect and the Wolf Fang Sect were clearly demarcated.

"This is bad! The Ye Family brothers sent a distress signal. They’ve run into a Beast Tide in the woods! We must go rescue them at once!"

Just as the experts from the Void Sect left their garrison, they were intercepted by the upper echelon of the Wolf Fang Sect, led by Jin Quan.

"Gentlemen, where might you all be going?" Jin Quan asked with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

"What business is it of yours? Move aside!" The one leading the Void Sect group was a middle-aged man in black robes named Ji Lin, an expert of the Void Realm.

"Heh heh, the competition for the younger generation is about to begin. It’s against the rules for you all to leave so mysteriously," Jin Quan, a burly man standing nine feet tall, looked down on Ji Lin and sneered.

Ji Lin wasn’t stupid; he quickly understood what was happening.

The Wolf Fang Sect was so named because they associated with all manner of beasts, and every member was a master beast tamer.

Back in the day, the founding master of the Wolf Fang Sect had a High-tier Fifth-level Demon Beast, a Cyan Wind Wolf, as his mount. Its power was equivalent to a human cultivator at the Late Stage of the Void Realm.

The path of a Cultivator begins with the Three Refinements: Refining Essence, Qi Refining, and Refining Divine Being. Above those are the Purity Realm, the Vajra Realm, and the Void Realm. Only then comes the Void Realm!

The Wolf Fang Sect’s founding master was himself at the Late Stage of the Void Realm. When man and wolf joined forces, even the Mountain and Sea Empire had to yield to their might.

Because of this, the Wolf Fang Sect had once enjoyed an era of glory.

"It was you! You, the Wolf Fang Sect, caused this Beast Tide!" Ji Lin roared.

Jin Quan feigned shock, waving his hands. "Ji Lin, watch your mouth. Causing a Beast Tide? That’s a heinous crime. My Wolf Fang Sect could never bear the responsibility for something like that."

"But..." Jin Quan’s tone shifted. "How is it that we know nothing about this Beast Tide? Look around you. The world is peaceful and quiet. How could there be a Beast Tide? Don’t tell me you fabricated an excuse, intending to do something to the Spiritual Ore mine?"

"Nonsense!" Ji Lin was both furious and anxious. Every second they were delayed meant another second of danger for Ye Lei and the others.

"We don’t have time to waste arguing with you! Get out of the way, we’re going to save them! If you don’t believe us, you’re welcome to come along!"

Jin Quan, of course, would not agree. He refused flatly. "No. You can’t leave. Who knows if this isn’t some kind of trap you’ve set."

"We both know who’s setting the trap. I’ll ask you one last time: are you moving or not?" Ji Lin knew perfectly well that the excuse Jin Quan and his men were using to block them was laughably flimsy. The Wolf Fang Sect was behind all of this.

"Oh? You want to fight? Fine. Let this master see if your Void Sect’s skills are as big as your appetites."

With a sharp whistle from Jin Quan, all the experts of the Wolf Fang Sect summoned their Demon Beast companions, completely surrounding the group from the Void Sect.

"Get them!"

Ji Lin took the lead, a Grotto Heaven appearing behind his head as he began to battle Jin Quan. The others also engaged in a fierce melee.

But Ji Lin quickly realized something was wrong.

Jin Quan and his men looked menacing, but they weren’t actually fighting viciously. They were just tying them down, preventing them from leaving.

"You’re trying to stall for time!"

Ji Lin was furious. His strength was about equal to Jin Quan’s. If Jin Quan was determined to only stall him, there was nothing he could do.

"Jin Quan, do you have any idea of the consequences of this? Are you trying to start a war between the Wolf Fang Sect and my Void Sect?" Ji Lin demanded.

Jin Quan dodged one of Ji Lin’s furious strikes and chuckled. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

He would do it, but he would never admit to it.

...

Inside the Heaven-Deceiving Array, Ye Lei and his group looked grim and exhausted.

Although the Demon Beasts couldn’t discover the people inside the Heaven-Deceiving Array, the stampeding and trampling of the Beast Tide was relentless.

To keep the Array from breaking, they had no choice but to continuously pour True Essence into it.

But aside from Ye Lei and Ye Dian, the rest of the disciples only had a Refining God Cultivation.

Less than a quarter of an hour had passed, and many of them had already exhausted their True Essence.

"This can’t go on!" Ye Lei sent a telepathic message to Ye Dian. "The seniors are late, and who knows when Mo Qi will succeed at Array Breaking. We can’t hold on for much longer."

Ye Dian pondered for a moment, then took out a pile of Spirit Stones and Elixirs and distributed them to all the disciples.

"From now on, we’ll fuel the Array with True Essence in shifts. Half of us will work while the other half rests. Those who are resting, use the Spirit Stones and Elixirs to recover quickly. We’ll switch every seven and a half minutes."

This was the best solution Ye Dian could come up with.

However, this wasn’t a long-term solution. Everything depended on how quickly Mo Qi and the Sect seniors would arrive with reinforcements.

"If you ask me, Mo Qi just ran away, leaving us here to draw all the fire. Otherwise, how is a piece of trash like him in the Refining Essence stage supposed to handle the Array Breaking?" Qi Tian cursed under his breath as he swallowed an Elixir and clutched a Spirit Stone to recover his energy.

This time, no one refuted him, mainly because everyone was too exhausted to even bother speaking.

Liu Hui, for his part, disdained to speak. ’When you’re dealing with a mad dog barking, you might try to shut it up once or twice. But if it keeps going, there’s no point. It’s better to just find a chance and put it down with a single slash.’

...

"Who are you?" an unusually fat, bald young man asked, staring warily at Mo Qi.

Because he was agitated, the countless layers of fat on his body jiggled restlessly.

Mo Qi was completely dumbfounded. Staring at the "ball of flesh" before him—whose chin rested on a chest that resembled a stack of pancakes, completely burying his neck, with a belly that nearly touched the ground—Mo Qi couldn’t help but marvel at the Creator’s miraculous works.

’How could someone so fat exist in this world!’

"Pig Emperor, come on out! I’ve found your brother."

The Pig Emperor poked its head out, took one look, and immediately started shouting about breaking off all ties with Mo Qi.

"Mo Qi, open your dog eyes and look carefully! This emperor is pleasantly plump, not fat! You can insult my character, but you cannot question my figure!"

"Ahem, speaking of which, since when does a pig have character?" Mo Qi gave a dry laugh.

"Pig-sonality, then! Is that okay? Hey, wait, is my ’pig-sonality’ really the point here? Believe it or not, I’ll cut ties with you in a heartbeat..."

Before he could finish, the fat, bald youth interrupted him. "Who are you, really?"

Mo Qi glanced around. All the Demon Beasts were being repelled by an invisible force, kept more than a hundred zhang away and unable to get closer.

This was the place with the most intense abnormal energy fluctuations, and it was also the core of the Basic Beast-Attracting Array.

"Are you the one from the Wolf Fang Sect guarding this place?" Mo Qi looked at the fat youth, asking a question instead of answering.

The fat youth’s eyes were filled with confusion. He scratched his bald head and said, "Wolf Fang Sect? I guess so."

After a pause, the fat youth suddenly looked very unhappy, like a child throwing a tantrum. "I asked you first. Why haven’t you answered me yet?"

Mo Qi was taken aback. ’Is this guy for real?’

"If you don’t answer me, I’m gonna let Little White bite you!" the fat youth said, puffing his cheeks in anger.

Mo Qi frowned, a thought stirring in his mind.

He was cultivating the Nine Transformations into Spirit. He had already gone through the First Transformation Spirit Communication, Second-Turned Live Fetus, Third Transformation Breath, Fourth Transformation: Bone Tempering, Fifth Transformation Nourishing Divine Being, and Sixth Transition Essence Purification. He was now at the Seventh Turn Foundation Establishment.

These transformations had not only given him a powerful physique and unparalleled potential, but they also made Mo Qi incredibly familiar with the construction of the human body.

This "construction" included both the physical body and the soul.

Focusing his power into his eyes, Mo Qi stared at the fat youth and quickly discovered the source of his problem.

The fat youth’s strange actions and words were not a deliberate act. His head had suffered a severe injury when he was young, leaving him with the mental capacity of a five or six-year-old child.