Chapter 257: Between Land and Sea (1)

There were heroes, warriors and legends of old that worked hard to attain their powers. 

Myths of a man that struggled for a thousand years to obtain power and godhood, of a monkey undergoing challenges before ascending and several other more individuals that underwent trials and tribulations.

Sure, there might have been individuals just born lucky.

Perhaps being born a demi-god, or blessed with supreme luck and strength… but most of them still underwent a process to reach their levels and become a pinnacle.

Li Yang on the other hand only needed to have women think he was charming or sexually attractive to gain power. It was unfair in a way, he acknowledged that to another person, they wouldn't have minded the Heavens watching and encouraging him to walk a certain path. 

He didn't even need to manually cultivate if he desired it—which made him realize that he needed to do that.Now was the good time to actually check on how much he accumulated since coming out from the Afterlife.

[ Power Points: 86,169 ]

So that was what remained after buying the Necromancer's Circle of Death and the Aroma of Death? The former seemed to have only been one-time use to summon the dead and by proxy attract the Ghost Reaper.

Or one of the Ghost Reapers available in the universe. 

What about the Aroma of Death? Could he use that again or was it a status condition now? 

Still, what he was currently perplexed with the most was the amount of points he had now. Didn't he get anything from all the fighting he did in the Afterlife? 

He battled a lot of creatures back there that surely should have given more points. There were skeletons, zombies and other undead creatures back there. He slipped into what was deemed as a sanctum of death and he came out without nothing? 

"Isn't that impossible?" Li Yang muttered underneath his breath. "I even actually met…someone in that place that should have merited me some sort of award or achievement at least based on the rather generous reward system."

He didn't give the Observers any satisfaction by mentioning any names or even what he figured out the goddess to be, but his System should have an answer for that, didn't it?

"Where are the rest of my points? Is it being blocked or anything?" Li Yang asked.

Somehow, he was expecting Bao to pop in and give an answer, but the creature was silent. It seemed to have grown more unattached to providing him answers and stuck with the role of transmission.

It was strangely unusual and even uncharacteristic of Bao to do that, but the System answered him.

[ Greetings, Host! ]

[ System Is Currently Checking The Host's Heavenly Deposit ]

[ Points And Gifts Earned Are On Standby Until Further Processing ]

Once again the System decided to not mention anything until he actually prompted it. It was reliable and yet certainly not on his side for the most part… whoever created this made it this way perhaps. Regardless, he didn't experience such a thing before.

"...Is this because of the Patch Update incident with DatPeach?" Li Yang asked.

[ The Host Is Correct ]

[ Do Not Worry, Host. The Points and Gifts Have Been Under Processing For The Last 5.5 Hours. 30 Minutes Left Until Acception ]

"Is it really that slow to check whether or not there's anything dangerous?" Li Yang shook his head and decided to purchase the next levels of cultivations while waiting. If the System was that thorough, then he'd let it be.

There was no need for him to rush things as he had ample time before reaching the island.

He summoned the Main Screen and went for the Personal Cultivation area instead of the Charm Shop. While gathering equipment and useful Skills to aid his combat style was necessary, it was also better to increase his base stats if he were to put it in a gamer's perspective.

This wasn't a game at all and he knew that death was something that could happen to him—but it made things easier to organize and strategize if one thought about it this way.

Li Yang would rather not be a… glass cannon. Powerful but fragile when struck by a greater enemy was not a good thing, that experience he had of simply running away from Aurora at Telriah was unpleasant to say the least—he needed to become more impervious to damage than relying to one-hit enemies. 

If it weren't for his strange affinity to the goddess' brother and gaining a skill specified for god-killing then it would have turned out badly. He escaped death within a hair's breadth. Li Yang was weak in universal perspectives.

That was also still applicable to him here, despite training in Telriah.

There were thousand-year old monsters on earth so he was still at a disadvantage. While his training at Mashiro Temple allowed him to be more at ease with using energy, and qi at earth... it was still him up against higher-leveled individuals who had more techniques than him.

He'd rather choose a more realistic and balanced take on combat by still becoming a cultivator who could fight and stand on his own.  The thought of having Taiga as a bodyguard before seemed like a brilliant idea, and he even contemplated hiring more if the situation became more dangerous, but now it was more possible for him to get stronger on his own.

It made more sense to get stronger than to rely on others.

[ Would You Like To Purchase Qi Condensation - XI? ]

[ Deducting 25,000 Points From The Host... ]

[ You Have Successfully Bought Qi Condensation - XI ]

[ Would You Like To Purchase Qi Condensation— ]

Right before he could purchase the next Qi Condensation Level, Li Yang noticed the temperature around him drop. It wasn't that often for him to actually notice a change in temperature because he could regulate his body to an extent.

His entire field vision suddenly changed as the wind blew madly all of a sudden, white wisps covered the entire ship and blocked him from seeing anything else.

Was this what Yuan Gen meant earlier of it not being useful to stay above deck? A kind of fog that blocked even those of cultivators?

No. 

Li Yang didn't think this was what the guy meant earlier at all. It was quite unlikely for a person to memorize a ship's path unless they had some sort of special eidetic memory. 

This was another thing completely.

He quickly retrieved his pen, before switching it out with the Yao Slayer. He could still imbue his qi on it to inflict damage, whether or not it was specified to dealing with other creatures. The sound of footsteps below the deck thundered in the back of his head.

Were they going up at a time like this?

The sound of alarms suddenly echoed and he saw a burst of light break through from the front of the ship—a sort of light qi blast that attempted to purge the white fog that surrounded them. 

It was no use however.

[ Warning! You Have Entered An AoE Space ]

[ This Area Is Hovering Between the Living and Dead ]

[ Welcome to the Ghost Mists of the Seas ]