Edited by Aelryinth

Xingjing City, Jingzhou…

It was a day with a gentle wind and warm sunshine…

Today, the area within several kilometers of the herbal research institute was on high alert.

Many teams of fully armed elite soldiers were stationed all around the research institute. Some beastmasters emitting powerful auras were also scouting out the situation around the area. If anything seemed amiss, they’d summon out their powerful subdued beasts to kill anyone who dared trespass without mercy.

More than half of the spiritual herbs in the herbal field were in bloom. Dozens of unusually large bees were buzzing back and forth through the flowery field, gathering the tiny amount of nectar in flowers and returning to the huge beehive at the side of the herbal field.

A group of people were gathered at the side of the field, two of which had stars on their shoulders. One of them had two shiny golden stars on each of his shoulders. It was none other than Zhang Che’s future father-in-law, Huang Juyun. Standing next to him was a grey-haired elder. His complexion was a healthy pink, his face showing signs of being an old veteran from the military, very serious and unsmiling.

However, his tone of voice was hinting at some joy….

He pointed at the herbal field in front of them, feeling a surge of emotions, and asked, “Juyun, these spiritual herbs and bees were all obtained by that kid Zhang Che alone from the beast world?”

Huang Juyun answered respectfully to the elder with three shiny golden stars on his shoulder, “That’s right, General Fu. Not only that, the spiritual jades buried in the herbal field were also obtained by Zhang Che. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the herbal field to have grown to this size.”

The elder wasn’t some outsider. He was the Huang family’s ally in the military, Fu Tianjiang, and was also Grandpa Huang’s close friend. However, unlike Grandpa Huang, who had already retired to the backlines, Fu Tianjiang still held a specific position and bore certain duties. This time, he was here on orders from the military to inspect the herbal research institute and see the production of spiritual honey.

“Tsk, tsk. He’s really a man of great fortune! This old man is really looking forward to the future. Perhaps another divine-tier beastmaster will be produced in Hua Xia in a few years’ time!”

Actually, Fu Tianjiang had read through Zhang Che’s information very thoroughly. After learning that the spiritual honey produced by the Huang family was also Zhang Che’s merits, he felt another surge of amazement inside.

He knew youngsters like Zhang Che, who possessed incredible talent and luck, would surely become legendary figures if nothing untoward happened to them!

The two chatted a little more about Zhang Che’s matters before Fu Tianjiang returned to the main topic, asking, “How much spiritual honey can be harvested from the herbal field, and how many of those new body tempering pills can be produced per day?”

That was the main objective Fu Tianjiang was here for.

The new body tempering pills developed by the Huang family were extremely effective in helping high-tier beastmasters with their cultivation, and had received great attention from the military.

If some ordinary little clan had developed such high grade medicinal pills, they’d probably be targeted by others immediately. Even if they weren’t eaten alive, they’d never be able to enjoy the benefits by themselves.

The Huang family was different, however. The clan wasn’t weak to begin with, in addition to having an ally like the Fu family. No one would dare have designs on them.

However, the military still hoped to obtain more medicinal pills from the Huang family to nurture the elites in the military, wanting to gain some initiative for the upcoming fifth beast swarm.

In the battles against exotic beasts, beastmasters were merely Summoners. They didn’t possess much killing power, and were totally reliant on the strength of their own subdued beasts.

If there was a kind of medicinal pill that could greatly increase the combat ability of beastmasters, it would be akin to combining a Warrior and Summoner class together. The overall combat ability they could display wasn’t something as simple as one plus one equals two.

As such, the military placed such high importance on the new body tempering pills, and had sent Fu Tianjiang, who was close to the Huang family, to come inspect things.

Huang Juyun thought for a moment before replying, “Regarding the spiritual honey, the herbal field was relocated to Jingzhou only recently, and many spiritual herbs are still not in their flowering period yet, so the production rate is less than a hundred and fifty grams per day for now. However, when the spiritual herbs have adapted to the weather here after some time, they will become more and more prosperous. Production will definitely increase at that time.

“But, as you are aware, General Fu, spiritual honey is only used as a catalyst in the production of the new body tempering pills. The required amount actually isn’t that high. What’s really restricting the production of the body tempering pills are the other few rare ingredients.”

Huang Juyun wasn’t lying. Even if they only had a hundred grams of spiritual honey, they could produce about a thousand body tempering pills if there were sufficient supporting ingredients. However, due to the lack of a few types of supporting ingredients, the production of the new body tempering pills was only at about two hundred pills per day!

Two hundred pills a day might sound a lot, but after distributing them, it was only enough to support the cultivation for six hundred high-tier beastmasters at the most!

Let alone the whole of Hua Xia, the military alone had way more than six hundred high-tier beastmasters. Providing two hundred body tempering pills was like throwing a cup of water into a burning cart of firewood.

Fu Tianjiang squinted for a moment, then asked, “Which ingredients are you lacking, specifically?”

Huang Juyun’s eyes lit up upon hearing that. However, he wasn’t sure which few ingredients were lacking. He immediately beckoned for a staff member next to him and had the staffer give Fu Tianjiang the specific data.

While listening, Fu Tianjiang also waved his hand toward his side. An attendant immediately entered the ingredients mentioned by the research institute staff into a miniature computer. After checking for a bit, he nodded at Fu Tianjiang firmly.

Fu Tianjing nodded slightly in return, then said to Huang Juyun, “In that case, the military will fully provide the lacking ingredients, but can you sell the entire difference in body tempering pills to the military? Rest assured, you can sell them at market price.”

Huang Juyun immediately smiled, “That’s no problem! If the military will provide for the few lacking ingredients, the production of body tempering pills will increase to over a thousand per day! We can provide more than eight hundred of them to the military.”

Since the pills were to be sold at market price, what difference did it make who they sold them to? Huang Juyun was naturally glad to see this come to fruition. He agreed to the proposition straightforwardly. That was all money! The profit wouldn’t be as high if he only sold spiritual honey in its base form!

With that, the Huang family stood to profit from the deal, and Fu Tianjiang would be considered to have accomplished the mission assigned to him by the higher-ups. Eight hundred body tempering pills a day was enough for the military to nurture about two thousand high-tier beastmasters! That was very helpful in increasing the overall strength of the military.

As for negotiation about the price, since Fu Tianjiang wasn’t spending his own money, so he had no consideration for it at all. Putting aside the fact that he was close to the Huang family, even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t want to waste time discussing the price. This was completely a seller’s market, with only that many body tempering pills produced a day. How many people were looking to buy them and were willing to pay a higher price for the pills?

If the Huang family felt that the price wasn’t right and decided to not cooperate with the military, only the military would be suffering a loss!

After they were done discussing this matter, Fu Tianjiang strolled around the herbal research institute with Huang Juyun accompanying him, then went back to Xinjing City’s military division.

As a high-ranking officer, since he was already at Xinjing City, he’d definitely have to go take a look at the local division. The Xinjing military was sent into a fluster again, busying themselves for some time to receive General Fu Tianjiang!

——

Zhang Che had no idea his father-in-law had just clinched a huge deal. At present, he was with Zhao Wu’s group, accompanied by an army of subdued beasts, and advancing into Mt Fallen Star.

Since they were sure there weren’t any divine-quality and higher exotic beasts in the mountain range, Zhang Che wasn’t afraid of drawing any danger to them with their flashy movement.

As long as the exotic beasts on Mt Fallen Star didn’t charge at them all in one go, with the epic-level combatants Zhang Che had, in addition to the support from Zhao Wu’s group, there was nothing for them to be afraid of.

Similarly, Zhao Wu’s group was originally somewhat wary, but they relaxed a little after seeing how strong Zhang Che’s babies were, and charged into Mt Fallen Star feeling a little excited.

As they entered the outskirts of Mt Fallen Star, what greeted them was the smell of rust. It was only then that Zhang Che realized the rust-like things exposed on the surface of the ground might actually be rust!

-Could it be that the entire land is a huge lump of iron ore?- Zhang Che was frightened by his own thoughts. If this huge piece of land spanning hundreds of kilometers all around was filled with iron ore, even if it was only the surface of the ground, the amount of iron was unbelievable!

While walking, Zhang Che summoned out the Scarlet Meteorite Huge Sword and casually slashed at a rusty red mountain rock.

With a crisp sound, a big rock fell from the slash. The cut surface glittered with metal.

“Si…” Zhang Che sucked in a cold breath of air. He was really a little shocked now. He looked at Zhao Wu in disbelief and asked, “Could it be that the rocks here are all iron ore?”

Zhao Wu nodded. He said, “That’s right. The scouts who came to survey the area gathered some samples and brought them back to study. They are indeed iron ores of very decent quality, and it is very easy to smelt them. However, this place is too far from the safety zone. It’s not very realistic to mine them.”

Although Mercury was incredibly huge, the mining of iron ore had reached a terrifying degree in the few hundred years since humanity went through the industrial revolution. Relevant data had shown that there were still iron mines on Mercury with mining value, probably enough to support mining for a hundred years or so.

When the iron mines on Mercury were exhausted in the future, sights would be set on the beast worlds. Even though the mining and transportation conditions were harsh, people would surely work in this direction regardless.

Zhang Che thought that it would be very suitable if he could gather a batch of high-level high-quality storage-type beast cards and use them to transport this iron ore.

Let alone others, a mid-tier epic-quality storage-type beast card had to have about a thousand cubic meters of space available, right?

Calculating based on the weight of iron ore, a cubic meter of it would be about thirty to forty tons. A mid-tier epic-quality storage-type beast card could store tens of thousands of tons of iron ore!

Even if it were storage-type beast cards of a slightly inferior grade, if he could gather hundreds, or even thousands or them, the amount of iron ore that could be transported at one go would be astronomical.

Of course, Mercury was filled with crises. Whether it could endure until that day was a problem… Moreover, compared to this worthless iron ore, the other products of the beast worlds were the most important things.

The geographical features of Mt Fallen Star were very complicated. The mountain peaks here weren’t high, and weren’t huge, either, but they were indeed countless numbers of them, and they were densely crowded. The gullies between the peaks were interconnected, spreading as far as the eye could see, making it difficult for people to look beyond.

Although there were almost no vegetation, the complicated geography made it difficult to spot exotic beasts as long as they weren’t moving, even though there were many hiding in this mountain range.

As a result, even though Zhang Che had Summoned out the Purple Jade Condor to survey the land from thousands of meters in the sky, it didn’t discover many exotic beasts. Despite having advanced to mid-tier legend-quality, the subdued beast was limited by its species’ attributes and could only see active creatures. Its scouting ability had a glaring weakness.

“Hmm? There still aren’t any exotic beasts coming at us?” Zhang Che couldn’t help but show a confused look after walking for some time and crossing a few hills. They hadn’t encountered a single exotic beast yet!

It was normal when he thought about it, however. Even places with a high population of exotic beasts was only in a relative sense. They couldn’t possibly be everywhere.

Take those areas Zhang Che had visited to hunt mid-tier exotic beasts. It was considered to have a high population density if there was only one exotic beast every hundred meters.

However, before this idea was dropped from his mind, the Purple Jade Condor sent out a warning from the skies. There really were tons of exotic beasts a few kilometers away, like they had just crawled out from the ground. They were gathering from all everywhere, then swarmed in Zhang Che’s direction.

It went without saying that the huge commotion caused by Zhang Che’s group had alarmed the exotic beasts ahead, especially the Earthen Rock Demon. Its massive figure would produce a dull sound with every step it took, spreading for kilometers.

Through their spiritual link, Zhang Che could almost share the Purple Jade Condor’s observation. As such, he could vaguely sense the densely packed exotic beasts sweeping in his direction.

Zhang Che felt his scalp going a little numb.

-This damn foul mouth is really effective!- Zhang Che cursed himself inside. He couldn’t help but hesitate.

If he was alone, he wouldn’t care how many exotic beasts there were, as long as there wasn’t a single exotic beast whose strength overwhelmed him. With the Darkfiend Abyssal Dragon, Zhang Che could go anywhere he wanted.

However, at present, Zhang Che was accompanied by Zhao Wu’s group of four, whose strength was only mediocre. It would be bad if he couldn’t keep them safe and casualties appeared among them.

Well, in Zhang Che’s mind, any beastmaster without an epic-level combatant could only be described as mediocre at best.

Who knew if Zhao Wu and the others would cover their faces and cry if they were to learn what Zhang Che thought of them…

Zhao Wu immediately noticed the strange look on Zhang Che’s face and couldn’t help but ask worriedly. “Zhang-shao, is there a situation ahead?”

He saw Zhang Che Summon out the Purple Jade Condor earlier, and gathered that it should be a scouting-type flying subdued beast. Surely it had discovered the tracks of exotic beasts ahead. Not only that, the situation might not bode well…

-Could it be that exotic beasts above epic-quality might really exist in Mt Fallen Star? If that is true, we have no choice but to turn back immediately, and to never have any designs on the exotic beasts here again.-

Zhang Che’s expression was a little strange. He didn’t answer Zhao Wu, but posed a question in return, “You guys have fought in the beast worlds for a long time. Have you ever seen a situation where exotic beasts are spread everywhere as far as the eye can see?”

-What? Exotic beasts are everywhere?-

Was that a joke? Most exotic beasts didn’t gather in groups, and were enemies with one another. How could such a situation happen?

Zhao Wu and the others still thought Zhang Che might be teasing them, but they immediately thought of the unique environment here, and their expressions finally changed.

-Could there really be an army of exotic beasts ahead?-

The truth was exactly that. Meeting the shocked gazes of Zhao Wu’s group, Zhang Che nodded firmly.

The four of them couldn’t help but suck in a long breath of cold air. This was simply a situation of Hell difficulty, alright?

The term ‘everywhere, as far as the eye could see’ was mostly used to describe armies, especially the Hua Xia military. It was the first time Zhao Wu and the others ever heard of it being used to describe exotic beasts.

But the problem was, there really was an army of exotic beasts charging at them from the mountain ridges ahead!