Chapter 60: Stolen memories

Yun Jhin acted as if he was still unconscious as Kong Luo gave his body to a nearby soldier and instructed him:

"Go and place him inside my quarters, I have to report to the Emperor that I have found a new possible replacement for me, use 2 Dragon Pine herbs on him and leave him on the Cold Jade bed."

The man saluted Kong Luo and took Yun Jhin from his arms, the man almost wobbled as Yun Jhin's weight was pretty big, as he faked being unconscious he didn't control his weight, right now he weighed around 1 ton due to all of the body refining he did, but he could control his body to the point that the weight didn't affect himself or the others with his ki.

The man was at the 1st stage of the King Cultivating realm and his body wasn't very strong but after wobbling he started to quickly walk towards Kong Luo's quarters.

While Yun Jhin was being sent to be healed, Kong Luo left the militaristic building and entered in the huge crowd of the capital, after a while of flashing around the crowd he finally reached a giant blue pained palace with the character for 'Azure Dragon' painted on gold on a jade plaque above the entrance.

The man walked inside and kneeled as he approached the door of the throne room and shouted:

"General Kong Luo wants to report something to his Imperial majesty!"

A gruff voice could be heard coming from behind the door as it opened, an old man who wore dark imperial robes walked out, he had a big bushy beard and long eyebrows, Kong Luo kept kneeling as he said:

"Eunuch Black Blood."

Eunuch Black Blood nodded at him then said:

"The Emperor is resting after a 'wrestling' session with a few of his concubines."

Said concubines were getting carried on stretchers as a few men opened the doors and left towards the infirmary of the palace.

Kong Luo ignored what happened and said:

"So can I leave my message with you Eunuch Black Blood?"

The Eunuch took out a jade slip and said:

"Make it fast, the Emperor wants me to recite poetry for him after his escapades."

Kong Luo nodded at him then started to tell what happened up till now, how Yun Jhin confronted him and about his talent, Black Blood kept scribbling on the slip then entered the palace ignoring Kong Luo after he finished talking.

Kong Luo's back was damp as he looked at the palace doors, the intense aura coming from them almost made him pee himself in fear, The Emperor was a God Realm expert, even though he wasn't even a middle God Realm expert he was still 2 Realms above him!

The difference between a God Realm expert and a 9th stage Sage Realm expert was enormous let's not even talk about the one between an Emperor Realm and the God Realm.

Kong Luo left the palace and returned to the imperial army barracks, even though they were called barracks they were like little palaces. After all, the Emperor wanted his army to live in good conditions, there hasn't been a war in a long time but the army was still training and recruiting every day, it was seemingly preparing for something...

Yun Jhin looked around the room he was now in, his soul willpower scanned the room interior and exterior and he found out that it was heavily fortified with high-ranked formations, he wouldn't be able to do anything inside even if he wanted to, even though he was a formation master the formations that worked here were above him, he would need a higher cultivation base to interfere with them.

The soldier from before already put him in the Cold Jade bed and gave him the two herbs, he could feel them working, cleansing his blood and dissolute the remaining one slowly, they were quite strong herbs as they were of the Yin attribute, they were used for such type of situations as Yun Jhin ignition of ki was of the Yang attribute.

As his body was healing he finally had time to look into the memories of that woman Momo, he wasn't sure from where she could have gotten the demonic technique she trained in but he was ready to find out.

He started looking through her memories but some of them were either fragmented or incomplete, this showed that her soul wasn't complete from the start, Yun Jhin guessed that the price for the cultivation technique should have been a quarter of her soul.

Hopefully the memory of where she got it didn't get affected.

As Yun Jhin looked further through the memories discarding the useless ones and keeping only the good information, he finally found what he was looking for.

A dark scaled arm moved slowly to Momo's forehead as a part of her soul was ripped from her and some information flowed in the remaining pieces of her soul that started to mend by themselves.

Dark energy started to appear in her eyes but she ignored it as she trained in the technique, unknowing to her, the one that gave her the technique had a big toothy smile on him, the woman didn't recognize it at the time as she was too infatuated by the technique, but Yun Jhin as a bystander could see it.

The memory didn't say much but there was peculiar energy in the air that Yun Jhin could recognize as sulfur from Dark Ebonite Trees, A dark ebonite forest was the best location a demon could live in the mortal realm.

Yun Jhin soul willpower stopped looking through Momo's memories as he started to circulate his ki to recover his cultivation and hasten his body's healing, he wasn't sure where the Dark Ebonite forest would be located, as the map from before that he memorized didn't have any such place located on it.

Maybe it was a forbidden region or hidden region in the middle continents, even though her memories regarding the demon were complete, the one that led her to the forest wasn't.

Yun Jhin sighed as he got up from the cold jade bed, his eyes widened as he saw Kong Luo's face appear in front of him, the man clapped for a bit and said:

"Very fast recovery, even though your cultivation dropped by 1 realm, I guess you can recover it quickly right?"

Yun Jhin nodded his head, his body ki cultivation was currently at the peak of the 8th stage and he would be able to regain his former cultivation quite fast if he put his mind to it, he only got up from the cold jade bed because he sensed that Kong Luo became impatient with him.

The general looked Yun Jhin up and down for a few times before he said:

"It seems you are pretty much healed, I'm going to give you time to recover your cultivation later, I will need you to give me a few drops of blood and sign this contract here so you can join the army."

He took out a contract from his Imperial robes and placed it in front of Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin read it for a few seconds and narrowed his eyes inside, this contract would make him become the general of his division if he reached the Emperor realm in 100 years of time, but he welcomed that!

As a general he would have free reign and a lot of subordinates that he could use, however, 100 years was a bit of quick, cultivating in the King Realm took a lot of time due to the peculiarities of the realm, even if Yun Jhin ate more people to gain their nutrients and ki it wouldn't help him much, it wasn't about enlightenment either, it was still accumulation but of a different kind.

Yun Jhin shook his head, it wasn't time to think about the King Realm yet, he needed to recover his cultivation fully first.

Yun Jhin signed the contract and sliced his thumb dripping a few drops of blood on it, the contract shined with a red light as it disappeared in a flash of light, it arrived in the Imperial Palace on the desk of the Emperor himself.

However the Emperor didn't grab it, he would only look at it the moment Yun Jhin entered the Emperor realm.

Kong Luo beamed happily at Yun Jhin and told him:

"Now that you signed the contract you are officially my vice-general, well on paper, the former vice-general is out hunting cultivation beasts and won't come back for quite a while, you will be replacing him until he comes, you won't have the same rights as he does, but you will still be above most soldiers, take it as if you are below the true vice general but above everyone else."

"Now let's see how to help you get back to your peak condition."

Kong Luo didn't care what kind of intentions he had anymore, as he signed the contract no matter what he had to honor it, or the Emperor would kill him, he got what he wanted so now he would support Yun Jhin as much as he could.

Yun Jhin watched as the man opened a drawer, made a few hand seals and took out a small bottle filled with a red liquid, it looked to be scalding hot as steam gushed out of it after he opened it.

Yun Jhin looked skeptical at the medicine but his eyes widened as he smelled it, it was the smell of Berserk Draconic Rhinocerous blood!

Yun Jhin realized that things were different than they looked on the surface, A draconic Rhinocerous was a halfling like he was, but he became a medicine bottle in the general's hand, it seemed the halflings weren't only looked down upon on the upper continent but they also had very low standings in general, of course, some halflings that were born from nobility and the imperial family would still be very respected but Yun Jhin was practically an outsider as his bloodline could be contested...

He sighed as he drank the blood, he would need to play it safe for the time being as his cultivation was pretty low, the searing heat of the Berserk blood started to rush into his body, cleansing his crystallized meridians further till they returned to their former look, they were even a little bit sturdier now.

His blood was now clean and flowed faster than before, his cultivation base was full and returned to the 9th stage, it even made a breakthrough to the peak of the stage in one go, it seemed the owner of the blood was of a high cultivation base or else it wouldn't have such a good effect.

Yun Jhin sighed as steam came out of his mouth and nose simultaneously, Kong Luo smiled at him then patted him on the shoulder and said:

"I will get you a place to breakthrough the King Realm, afterward, I will let you go outside to gain some more experience, the upper continents are different from the riff-raff and trash you find on the lower continents!"

Kong Luo was talking about the people as well as the fauna and flora, Yun Jhin nodded at him and followed as he was led to a wooden chamber in the middle of the army barracks, most of the soldiers saluted as Kong Luo walked towards the chamber, some of them even started talking and asking about who Yun Jhin was.

Kong Luo didn't tell all of them yet but the soldier who helped Yun Jhin to the bed before came and explained to some of them, and word moved fast in the army, after 10 minutes everyone knew who Yun Jhin was.

Some were angry, some fearful, some respectful and some were hating or discriminating against him, but with Kong Luo present everyone was all smiles and they just saluted like proper soldiers.

Most of them realized why Yun Jhin was sent to the wooden chamber but they weren't jealous of that, the chamber was meant for new recruits at the Ki cultivating realm, so they just looked with apathetic eyes at him, most of them were gloating and looking down upon his cultivation base even though they heard he defeated someone at the 5th stage of the King Realm, they didn't believe it.

Even though Kong Luo was strong, he was also known to be quite protective of those he thought to be talented and he would always give them the 'good stuff' as it happened with his late daughter Mijil.

Yun Jhin looked at the wooden chamber with strange eyes, this was one way to reach the king realm but it was quite primitive in his opinion, but he wasn't there to argue about it, he entered as Kong Luo left to fill some paperwork to make everything official about Yun Jhin's recruitment.

Yun Jhin sat cross-legged on the wooden tiles of the chamber and started meditating, he was familiar with their way of achieving the King Realm but he wasn't going to use it, it was quite slow to him and he had a faster route.

Star energy started to slowly fall to the planet, it fell to the atmosphere as it neared the imperial capital of the upper continent, and then it fell on Yun Jhin's head...

He started accumulating star energy to breakthrough the King Realm...