After reading the characteristics of the Ancient Tree of Life on the exchange platform for military personnel, Lin Yao made a decision in his heart. Upon advancing and becoming a silver warlord, he would plant the Ancient Tree of Life.
Aside from the seed of the tree, Lin Yao was also concerned about the soul of the beast. All the immovable sacred trees had a large number of dependents. The sacred tree would provide resources for them to advance quickly, while the dependents would protect the sacred tree. There was a symbiotic relationship between the two.
However, Lin Yao only had the angel and the feathered serpent spirit now. His collection was still very shabby. If possible, he would like to get a few more beast souls that were compatible with the sacred tree.
He focused on browsing the catalog on the military personnel’s exchange platform and soon, the spirit essence of a beast that had been sealed in a spar caught his eyes.
It was something that looked like a golden cicada. After reading its introduction carefully, Lin Yao discovered that it was compatible with his Bodhi Tree.
‘I actually found a companion and dependent for the Bodhi Tree. I had thought that would be the hardest to find.’
He could not just randomly find dependents for a sacred tree. The dependents had to be compatible with the sacred tree. This was the only way that the two would grow together.
Although it was difficult to find beasts with thunderbolt and holy light attributes, in general, beasts with the wisdom attribute were the rarest.
However, China had amazing means and vast resources. After browsing through all the information, Lin Yao discovered that, besides the golden cicada, there was a dragon tortoise that could foretell whether an event would be a blessing or a disaster.
The spirit beast, which was named Holo Dragon Tortoise, could serve as the main soul rather than the dependent of the Bodhi Tree, such as the feathered serpent spirit.
However, Lin Yao gave up on it in the end. It was not because he didn’t want it, but because it was too powerful at the moment.
Although the Holo Dragon Tortoise only had one dragon ball and one shell left, these were its core, which contained most of its energy when it was alive.
Most importantly, this dragon tortoise had been a king during its lifetime, and its remaining power was at least that of a titled warlord. If the dragon tortoise had been powerful enough during its lifetime, its dragon ball might even possess the combat power of a king.
It was too powerful, and Lin Yao’s Bodhi Tree was too weak. When the dragon tortoise’s soul became the main companion soul, it would need to be baptized to wash away the dragon tortoise’s original will and anything else before being reborn. This was the only way to enable Lin Yao to utilize it.
The baptism would consume the origins of the Bodhi Tree. Obviously, the current Bodhi Tree was unable to baptize the dragon tortoise completely.
Keeping this dragon tortoise in mind, Lin Yao began to search for other resources. Soon, he selected a spirit essence called Celestial Warlion.
This was a lion king who had the power of light, thunder, and lightning. Lin Yao had a unique idea about how to use it.
After bookmarking the dragon tortoise, the Ancient Tree of Life, and the Moon Well, Lin Yao used his two opportunities to trade for diamond resources to get the golden cicada and the Celestial Warlion. This was Lin Yao’s choice.
Following that, he browsed through the site again. After confirming he had no other specific needs, Lin Yao used his three opportunities in exchange for gold resources to get 20 bottles of Moon Essence, which could restore one’s mental strength, and 10 pieces of Calming Incense. He then exited the exchange platform and told Qi Qing to contact the authorities to expedite the shipping of the items.
“Got it. I’ll get in touch now.”
When Lin Yao woke up that morning, he couldn’t practice and study, as he had to conserve his energy. He had thought it would be very boring and hadn’t expected such a wonderful experience in the morning.
After he conversed with others and spent a lot of time browsing through the exchange platform of the military organization, it was soon 10 o’clock. It was time for the start of the Flowery Sect’s anniversary day.
At the moment, Lin Yao was no longer required to participate in the competition. Even if he became exceedingly famous, he couldn’t accept too many investments from businessmen. Both the dojo and the school had already been pre-determined for him.
In order to uphold the honesty of the military personnel, those who joined the military department had many restrictions placed on them.
Despite the restrictions, the military personnel possessed great power and authority. If a disaster were to occur in a certain place, the military personnel could take control of the situation, and everyone in that area would have to obey their orders.
At the same time, only military personnel could form a corps. Even the Buddhists who owned a troop had to report to the authorities if they wanted to assemble an army with more than 10,000 people.
Although his attendance was not compulsory, Lin Yao didn’t want to appear to be a coward. Therefore, he bit the bullet and went ahead with the event.
However, Lin Yao regretted it the moment he arrived at the venue and saw the attire prepared for him by the Flowery Sect for the first match.
“Do I have to do this?”
“It’s a must. It’s the same for everyone else. We’re not after you. You can wear your own swimming attire if you have some. We won’t mind.”
“But I mind!”
With a headache, Lin Yao turned to look to the side, only to discover helplessly that a group of handsome men and pretty women clad in swimsuits were standing in the hall.
It could only be said that the Flowery Sect was great at playing such games. In a bid to capture attention, their first match would be held underwater. Plus, to generate more hype and topics, they had even prepared swimsuits and stipulated that all the players had to wear the swimsuits in order to participate in the competition.
Obviously, this kind of competition would attract the gazes of countless people. The Flowery Sect had no shortage of hunks and beauties. These geniuses were now huddled together in their swimwear. How could those LSP[1] possibly hold themselves back?
After scanning the live-stream studio of the Flowery Sect briefly, Lin Yao realized that more than 30 million viewers were already watching this match.
This was an extremely exaggerated number. In the past, only the battles between kings used to attract that many people.
When he saw this massive viewership, Lin Yao, who did not have a good impression of the Flowery Sect, could not help but sigh. ‘You guys are really good at this game. You deserve to earn that much money.
‘However, it is precisely this excessive commercialization that makes the sect somewhat tainted.’
In the end, looking bored, Lin Yao put on his swimwear and stood with the other players.
After entering the venue, he chose to stand at the most obscure corner in order to avoid attracting the attention of others. He might not be the strongest, but there was no doubt that he was the best in terms of appearance and figure. His perfect body and face made him even more attractive than his genius junior sisters, who were clad in swimsuits.
What was worse was that the one holding the live-stream camera was actually a lady. This resulted in Lin Yao appearing frequently in the live footage.
“Don’t turn the camera. We want to see beauties… By the way, this young man is fairly good too.”
“Give me all the information you have on that man right away.”
“Oo, oo, oo… My wife can’t take her eyes off that man. She even tipped him tens of thousands of yuan. Oo, oo, oo…”
“Don’t be sad, Big Brother. Look on the bright side. That’s a man that your wife will never be able to get.”
“I know. I am not sad about this. What makes me upset is that although I have also tipped 10,000 yuan, he’s a man I can’t get either!”
“…”
The clamor outside aside, Lin Yao’s surroundings were not peaceful either. A group of girls kept surrounding him, which made him feel annoyed.
What made him sullen was that upon seeing the excellent response, the Flowery Sect actually extended the timing. They did one performance round and used some vicious words prior to the match.
Lin Yao ignored most of the words. He only wished for the match to end as soon as possible.
He wanted some peace, but Lǚ Yang wouldn’t allow him that after going onstage.
As a direct descendant of the Flowery Sect, he had been given some time to make a speech onstage. There was nothing peculiar in the beginning. However, when the host next to him asked about Lin Yao, Lǚ Yang actually smiled and said, “Student Lin Yao? I read his information yesterday and I understand why he becomes so easily antagonized after someone gives him some pointers. He’s from a small city, so he is peerless there, and others always fawn over him. He has never suffered one bit of grievance, which has resulted in his arrogant character. This is very bad. Hopefully, we can make use of this opportunity to change Student Lin Yao…”
He didn’t badmouth Lin Yao explicitly. While Lǚ Yang was onstage, he spoke about Lin Yao’s shortcomings with a forgiving tone and even expressed his hope that Lin Yao would change for the better.
Lin Yao was thoroughly disgusted by his words. Lǚ Yang, who had said this, had completely forgotten that it was his snobbish attitude that had triggered what had happened yesterday. In terms of arrogance, he was not any better than Lin Yao.
[1] LSP is the acronym of a Chinese word which means “a dirty old man”. It is widely used among the Chinese-speaking ACG groups with a rather positive and self-mocking attitude.