Chapter 33: Swallowing Oghara

Feng Shuran waited for over an hour before the frozen space finally returned to normal. The air sounded like a bunch of fireworks had gone off at the same time; the corpse of the old man dropped from the sky, and so did the black needle.

Feng Shuran was finally able to sense it again; she immediately used her connection with the needle to make it fly back to her.

The needle returned to her swiftly, and she stored it away. Feng Shuran watched as the corpse fell and disappeared into the forest below; she didn’t bother taking anything from it.

She didn’t know if the cause of the old man’s death was still there; making contact with the corpse might be dangerous.

Besides, the hourglass, which was most likely the most valuable thing on the old man, had already been destroyed.

She wasn’t interested in anything else the other party might be carrying.

Feng Shuran turned around and quickly disappeared into the distance.

.....

She arrived above Otefe after a while and made her way towards the sole mountain peak in the distance.

The yellow barrier was gone, and the sky was clear. No signs of the previous battle were left behind. The place looked as peaceful as it had always been.

Of course, if one looked down, they would see the numerous corpses around the base of the mountain.

Feng Shuran didn’t return to the courtyard right away and went on cleaning duty first.

She took all the corpses and stored them in a different storage treasure while placing their belongings in a different storage treasure.

Living beings usually couldn’t enter storage treasures, but since these were corpses, they could be stored with ease.

After cleaning up the place, Feng Shuran destroyed the storage treasure where she had placed the corpses before heading to the courtyard.

"Master, I’m back!" Feng Shuran called out in a light tone as she entered the house.

Her eyes fell on Gu Chen, who was half sleeping on the bed, his right arm supporting his head as he gazed at the entrance.

Feng Shuran’s eyes lit up, and she immediately skipped over to his side.

"Master, I did what you told me!" She reported with a proud smile.

Gu Chen stared at her. The woman’s expression looked like she was expecting head pats or some sort of reward.

’I could be overthinking; she’s probably not into such things.’ Gu Chen shook his head and sat properly.

"You did well," he said and waved his right hand. Two scrolls appeared above his palm, which he handed to Feng Shuran.

"Here, these are the two Chapters of the Formless Needle technique; study them when you have time." He added.

Feng Shuran looked at the two scrolls in her hands, slightly stunned. She quickly read through the two scrolls, and her expression became even more shocked.

This technique was definitely at the Heavenly-grade!

"Thank you, Master! I promise to learn them as soon as possible!" Feng Shuran said, a happy smile on her face.

Once she mastered this technique, she would be able to use the needle to its full potential as an Immortal-grade magical treasure!

Gu Chen smiled in response; he was satisfied with Feng Shuran’s reaction. After all, that technique had cost him quite a good amount of MP. He shamelessly ignored the fact that those MPs were earned by Feng Shuran.

Meanwhile, Feng Shuran kept the two scrolls and started taking out the spoils she had gathered. While doing so, she reported the matter about the old man and the hourglass to Gu Chen.

She wanted to know why the old man had died of old age.

"A treasure with a concept?!" Gu Chen exclaimed in surprise.

Feng Shuran nodded and explained how the old man had rapidly aged before dying.

"He overestimated himself," Gu Chen clicked his tongue and started explaining.

The concept stored in the hourglass had long turned wild since the cultivator who created it had died; a wild concept would attack everything within range once it was released.

The minimum requirement to survive a wild concept is to have a domain. Only cultivators at the Saint Realm could cultivate a domain, and experiencing a wild concept would be an opportunity for them, speeding up their advancement into the Immortal Realms.

However, the old man was only at the Core Formation Realm. Releasing the Dao of Time inside the hourglass was similar to a stranger letting out a pack of wolves from a cage.

Naturally, they would consume him first.

Not even a cultivator at the Spirit Transformation Realm would be able to survive a wild concept.

It would have been a different story if the Immortal who comprehended the Dao of Time was still alive, since he could control the concept to not harm the weaker cultivators.

A wild concept didn’t have any restrictions; that was why it had accelerated the time around the old man after being released.

He mentioned that Feng Shuran was lucky she didn’t get close. With her Nascent Soul Realm strength, she wouldn’t have survived it either.

Feng Shuran shivered slightly when she heard this; good thing she had kept her distance earlier.

Meanwhile, Gu Chen fell into thought.

Someone had actually managed to comprehend the Dao of time. Even though they had perished in the end, it was still a shocking feat in the cultivation world, as it was nearly impossible to do.

Every Immortal Realm cultivator had their own Dao, which would evolve from their domain while they were still at the Saint Realm.

Gu Chen had one too; he had comprehended the Dao of alchemy. While it wasn’t suitable for combat, it was ranked high even amongst combat Dao concepts.

But throughout his years as an Immortal, he had never met anyone who managed to comprehend the Dao of Time; he didn’t even encounter a Saint Realm cultivator with such a domain.

It would be impossible for such a prodigy to stay unknown in the cultivation world, so how did such a talent end up dying in a place like Oghara?

Gu Chen felt that there was more to this. Sadly, the old man was already dead, and he didn’t have any clues to start investigating.

Since they were done with that topic, Feng Shuran returned to the belongings of the cultivators she had gathered.

"You can hold onto them for now," Gu Chen waved his hand. He personally didn’t have any need for them; it was best to leave them with Feng Shuran since she was going to be the one managing the new branch of the org in the future.

"Okay!" Feng Shuran nodded and then asked about the factions of the people who had attacked them.

They couldn’t just ignore them after killing some of their cultivators.

Gu Chen thought for a bit and quickly came up with an idea.

"This is what you’ll do," he said and started explaining in detail.

More than half of the forces in Oghara had attacked them, and the attackers included their strongest cultivators. Currently, Feng Shuran had weakened Oghara greatly by killing those people; this would cause those sects and guilds to panic.

Outsiders would now be able to invade Oghara as well and claim the resources in it; Gu Chen couldn’t allow that!

Therefore, he was sending Feng Shuran to visit the sects and guilds of the cultivators that had attacked them. Giving them two options.

One was to pay tribute to his organisation every year. Could be rare medicinal herbs, pills, magical treasures, a certain amount of spirit stones; as long as the organisation found it satisfactory, it didn’t matter what they presented.

In exchange, they would get Feng Shuran’s protection against external threats, and their sects could continue operating normally.

The other option was to be completely destroyed by her.

Feng Shuran was currently the strongest in Oghara; they should also know the risk of outsiders coming here. If they were smart enough, the first option was literally a bowl of honey that they just needed to pay a yearly subscription for.

"Master, that’s a great idea!" Feng Shuran stated after listening to Gu Chen’s plan.

With this, the organisation will be receiving resources from multiple sects and guilds every year. They wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining the organisation after they started accepting disciples.

They talked for a bit more before Feng Shuran left to carry out the mission given to her.

As for Gu Chen, he didn’t forget to use the last mission card after giving Feng Shuran a new task. He wanted to see if the system would give this mission a good grade.

...

(Ding! The host has issued a mission!

Oghara has been weakened and faces the risk of being taken over by outsiders. The host has ordered Villainess Feng Shuran to subdue the forces in Oghara and turn Oghara into the territory of the organisation.

Mission grade: Gold rank.

Reward: 50,000MP.

Confirm mission: Yes/No)

...

"So many MPs!" Gu Chen exclaimed after seeing the details of the mission. He immediately confirmed the mission, and the last mission card in his inventory was used up.

Gu Chen didn’t care about the mission card; he could buy more with so many MPs!