Dual Cultivation God Returns

“Really, what a monster…”, Chen Hui shook his head as he walked along the open corridor of the deck, stopping to turn and look back for a moment.

Nothing seemed to change from the last time he saw Wu Long, and yet his intuition forged in battle experience told him that this mysterious stranger was much more dangerous than even before.

‘I wonder why he’s hiding his cultivation though…’, he then thought as he turned back and resumed walking, seeing that as the only possible explanation for how Wu Long could possess that level of strength.

—

“Heh, he has sharp senses for danger…”, at this same moment Wu Long was coming up the stairs.

“Young Master’s progress was just too great in a short time, no matter how well you can hide it, it’s just a matter of undeniable difference”, Butler Bang smiled.

The results Wu Long got from refining those injuries was far more profound than even he predicted, and the difference wasn’t at all negligible.

At this moment, no Mortal Grade weapon could even graze him, and even most 1-st tier Profound Grade weapons would only give him a scratch. The increased toughness and resilience of his bones, tendons and muscles also allowed him to significantly move up the threshold of how much stress he could put on them without risk of damage, which exponentially increased how much added raw power he could infuse into his actual physical strength and speed.

He had a hunch that the remarkable increase in how effective the Chaos Refining Body Tempering Art in refining these injuries was had something to do with the fact that it was now part of the Grandmist Core, but he didn’t know for certain yet.

Of course, this wasn’t the only area of progress, since his daily cultivation with his ladies allowed him to finally reach the 2nd level of Mortal Transcendence Realm, in addition to solidifying his progress with the auxiliary cores he created not long ago.

“Sly of you to talk about me, when your own progress has been remarkable, don’t think I missed how cleanly you took off the heads of those two who tried to flee”, Wu Long chuckled, giving the old man a glance.

“Hahaha, I wouldn’t dare to presume Young Master didn’t notice. Besides, you scared them out of their wits, to the point they were practically wide open. With the Invisible Weave and The Sky-Closing Net techniques that Young Master gave, if this Old Man wasn’t able to use that opportunity, it would have been quite embarrassing”, Butler Bang lightly laughed, humbly shaking his head.

“Heh, you know full well that a technique is only as great as its user allows it to be. Being humble is a good trait, I just hope you indulge me in receiving praise at least sometimes…”, Wu Long made a wry smile, adding with a mischievous light in his eyes, “…so I can pretend in front of my ladies that I’m a good employer”

The two laughed as they passed a few servants, leaving them in shock at seeing Butler Bang slightly breach his usual perfect head butler image.

—

Throughout the next week, things on the Beast of Burden appeared calm.

Though there were a few attempts by the other young masters to get Butler Bang to at least let them speak with someone from the top deck, there were no excesses, since by that time all of the people in that group knew about the presence of Chen Hui and his men on board.

The only ones who appeared to make no attempts were the one hosting the hunting trip, Young Master Kai, and Young Lady Shan.

Though for the latter, it was quite obvious that she sent her female friend to test the waters, seeing if the people from the top deck would be interested in talking if the guest was a woman. After all, she did not want to face the humiliation of being turned away herself.

There were also numerous attempts from not only the group of youngsters, but also other people who heard rumors, to spread Spiritual Sense to the top deck, which could be considered anywhere from bad manners up to a hostile act depending on circumstances.

But those attempts didn’t amount to even bad manners, as they all broke against a solid defense set up by the owners of the Beast of Burden between the floors and rooms, before even having a chance to reach any of measures set up by Wu Long and Lian Zhiqiu.

Young Master Rou, the only one out of the group on the hunting trip whose interaction with the Wu Family was negative, as all other young people were only casually trying to learn something about the mysterious Wu Family, was mostly silent in this time, but there was no doubt that his frustrations grew.

“Going somewhere?”, Wu Long chuckled, appearing behind Hong Ye and Hong Yue the night before the Beast of Burden reached the final World Stone that led to the world of the Wei Dynasty.

“So you decided to spare him after all, Darling”, Hong Ye replied, unlike her twin, not really surprised by his appearance.

“…You didn’t discuss it? Prior to, you know, doing something that’s quite irreversible?”, Hong Yue turned to her younger sister with incredulous look in her eyes.

“I figured if Darling doesn’t stop me he doesn’t care if that guy dies, if Darling stops me he decided to spare the guy”, the black-haired twin shrugged, explaining the ‘uncomplicated process’ of figuring out what Wu Long thought.

“What a great way to communicate”, Hong Yue rolled her eyes.

“Thank you, it’s a special bond”, Hong Ye chuckled happily.

“It was sarcasm”

“Sister Yue just doesn’t understand…”, Hong Ye spoke with a warm tone of voice, inwardly adding, ‘…yet’, and then turned to Wu Long, “right, Darling?”

“Haha, it certainly is efficient”, Wu Long’s hands wrapped around Hong Ye’s waist, bringing her into his embrace.

Hong Yue sighed while touching her forehead, seemingly questioning her life choices to be in this position.

“Though to be precise, I haven’t really decided yet, not completely anyway. I just decided to postpone the decision,” Wu Long added, “It’s true that the best timing to eliminate him is during this trip, before he reached out to his family, but ultimately it won’t really change the collision course with his family, just maybe slightly delay it. However, if there’s someone reasonable in his family who holds authority over that idiot, we can avoid any immediate and subsequent problems altogether after arriving in the capital. So there’s still a chance he might die, depends on how things go there”

“Hmm, if it means less problems for Darling, I’m fine either way”, Hong Ye shrugged.

—

The next day, the Beast of Burden crossed the final World Stone link, and arrived at a vast continent, and then made its way toward its center with great speed over the course of the day.

They soon joined a busy traffic of Beasts of Burden and flying people moving in an orderly fashion along one path, with squads of Imperial Guards in shining armor occasionally flying along this airway on smaller Beasts of Burden, keeping order.

Soon a giant plateau taking up a massive chunk of the horizon appeared in the view. And as they got closer, the view ensnared most of the ladies around Wu Long, all standing on the balcony facing the front.

“We’ve arrived… this is the Imperial City of the Wei Dynasty, the Radiant Emerald Falls, city of eternal summer…”, Captain Chen spoke with pride on the deck below.

The city center and much of its districts were built directly on top of an immensely large lake at the edge of the plateau, right at the point where the lake transitioned into a waterfall almost as wide as the lake itself.

The rocks making up the cliff wall behind the waterfall had a green hue, combined with the lighting and water, giving off an emerald green radiance.

The waterfall wasn’t fully cut off in the parts where the city met the cliff either, the lake waters going through the countless canals and under-city waterways ended up on the other side, pouring through numerous openings in shape of roaring beast heads, as well as from the ends of open rivers going through the city.

The line of flying traffic wasn’t directly heading for the waterfall, just slightly weaved at a distance from it, seemingly so that this scenery was clearly visible to anyone who arrived.

To one side of the city, in a distance, was a hill rising from the lake, which housed one of the more remote districts, connected to the central part of the city with only a few long bridges, and stretching further into the lake where it flowed into other remote districts.

A giant sky harbor was facing the other, far more steep side of the hill, opposite the direction of the city, thus mostly hidden from the view when looking from the city itself.

“Seems like this is the only way in and out of the city…”, Feng Yi noted that there were no other directions of approach, the line their Beast of Burden was flying in was the only one stretching to and from the city.

“Mm, and the district that’s adjacent to the harbor is detached from the central parts of the city, well, at least, directly, it’s still connected in just a very roundabout way through other parts further into the lake”, Bi Rui nodded, both noting the city planning.

“Isn’t that sort of pointless though?”, Cao Mei asked, not sure all of this mattered when cultivators could fly.

“They have astonishingly powerful defenses against anyone flying, be it a human or Beast, in their Protective Formation. And most of those defenses are fully active at all times, which is why the way to the city is so precisely controlled. Anyone who tries approaching from the air outside of this corridor will be shot down by the Formation all on its own before any people can even intervene”, Lian Zhiqiu’s eyes narrowed, interest waking up in them at the sight of such powerful Formations.

“It is apparently also forbidden to fly in the city, so the Protective Formation must be also active above a certain threshold”, Feng Yi added as the air above the city was visibly empty.

“And the harbor is detached from the central part in case someone sneaks in a decent amount of warriors disguised as civilians and launches an attack from there”, Bi Rui nodded.

“What if they didn’t attack right away, and assembled later on?”, Cao Xiang asked.

“Not sure, but this place is bound to have Secret Guards or something akin to it that constantly works within the city to sniff out such plots”, Shen Min spoke as she was very familiar with such work.

“Heh, in any case, it seems they’re taking their security quite seriously”, Wu Mengqi chuckled, drawing the conclusion everyone could agree with.