Chapter 2200 - 2198: Frenzied Advancement

After finishing the handover with Yan Xiaowu, Lu Ye, as usual, gave ten percent of the gains to Night Owl, which had provided the intel this time, then found a place to refine Dao Bones and raise his strength.

Within Banlan, the great war zones were surging with winds and storms, battles never ceased, and casualties on all sides were common. This was the melody that had never changed since ancient times in all of Banlan—so it was before, so it is now, and so it will remain in the future.

Unless someday, the three great forces wage a world-shaking final war and settle life and death once and for all.

Under such a grand trend, there were also some small ripples rising and falling. Compared to the overall situation in Banlan, these ripples were nothing much, but in certain specific regions or organizations, they became quite eye‑catching.

Falcon had recently produced a very formidable Entering-the-Path expert!

His codename was Owl. Not many people had seen him. Most of those in the know only knew he was of the human race, not very old, and wielded a Dao artifact short hammer.

The reason they called him formidable was because ever since he joined Falcon, he had only accepted Code Red missions, as if missions of other levels simply weren't worth his attention.

You had to know that almost no one touched Code Red missions. After all, even an Entering-the-Path expert as strong as Yan Hong had returned without success. No one was willing to waste time on such tasks.

But ever since Owl joined Falcon, those long‑standing Code Red missions had been cleared almost one after another every so often.

On average, he could complete a Code Red mission every month.

For many years, those long-pending Code Red missions had been reduced one after another after his appearance. So far, over half a year had passed, and he had already completed seven or eight Code Red missions!

Logically speaking, after this bout of clearing, those Code Red missions should have been almost dealt with.

But reality was otherwise.

Not only had Code Red missions not decreased, they had actually increased, because in the past no one accepted these missions, so the Night Owls couldn't be bothered to report them.

Now things were different. Owl seemed to be targeting Code Red missions specifically. Every time he took one, there was sure to be a kill, and a lot of Night Owls benefited along the way.

With that, the Night Owls' enthusiasm for reporting intel was naturally stirred up. Whenever a Night Owl discovered traces of an enemy expert with 14th Dao force, they would report at once. If luck had it that Owl took the mission, then nearly a hundred Dao Bones of gains were basically guaranteed.

Returning once again, Lu Ye saw Yan Xiaowu waiting for him from afar at the entrance of the Hall of Battle Merits.

The two of them met almost once every month, and Lu Ye and Yan Xiaowu could be considered familiar with each other by now. Furthermore, since Yan Hong had already gone into seclusion, Lu Ye had been contacting Yan Xiaowu directly in recent times.

"Brother Ye!" Yan Xiaowu raised a hand in greeting. After they got familiar, Yan Xiaowu's way of addressing him had become much more cordial.

Lu Ye nodded, handed over the Dao artifacts he'd gained this time, then took from him a storage ring filled with Dao Bones.

Yan Xiaowu examined the Dao artifacts, confirmed there was no problem, then looked at Lu Ye somewhat embarrassed: "Brother Ye, my Yan family can't swallow any more top-grade Dao artifacts."

Lu Ye was taken aback for a moment, then nodded to show his understanding.

Though the Artifact Refiners in Banlan could forge Dao artifacts, top-grade Dao artifacts were still rare and hard to come by. That was why the Yan family had been willing to buy them before. However, in the past half year, the Yan family had obtained eight top-grade Dao artifacts from Lu Ye.

Not every Entering-the-Path member of the Yan family needed a top-grade Dao artifact. Only those juniors valued by the clan's elders, and who also had decent talent, qualified to use them. The Yan family already had its own Dao artifact reserves, and with what they'd bought from Lu Ye, they had enough for the next several decades.

At nine hundred Dao Bones per top-grade Dao artifact, it was also no small expenditure for the Yan family.

Lu Ye had in fact anticipated this.

"What arrangements did Uncle Yong make?" Lu Ye asked.

Yan Xiaowu was briefly stunned, then smiled: "Sure enough, nothing gets past Brother Ye." His expression turned solemn as he spoke: "Before I came, Uncle Yong said, if Brother Ye is willing, he can help you contact the other major clans. They would certainly be happy to buy top-grade Dao artifacts, it's just that in terms of price… they'll cut one hundred Dao Bones."

"That's how it should be." Lu Ye nodded. The intel he'd gotten at the very start quoted that price. It was only because Yan Hong had spoken that the Yan family added another hundred Dao Bones—basically a friendship premium.

"If Brother Ye has no objections, just contact me as before. I'll handle the handover with you. Of course, I'm just a middleman. The Dao Bones will be provided by others, and when I take the Dao artifacts back, they'll be handed over to them as well."

"We'll do it that way then!" Lu Ye nodded; he had no issue with this.

The discussion settled, Yan Xiaowu left.

Lu Ye narrowed his eyes slightly.

Yan Xiaowu probably wasn't lying, but the greater likelihood was that that extra hundred Dao Bones of friendship pricing had made some people in the Yan family unhappy. Now that Yan Hong had gone into seclusion, the Yan family had simply pushed the price back to normal.

As for the claim that the Yan family couldn't swallow more top-grade Dao artifacts… Lu Ye did not believe that at all. Even if they couldn't use them themselves, they could just resell them to other clans.

Lu Ye could understand it. A great clan had a big foundation, and differing voices within the tribe were perfectly normal.

With a wave of his hand, the Night Owl who had been waiting at the side hurried over.

Leaving the Hall of Battle Merits, he, as usual, found a place to refine Dao Bones and raise his strength.

Half a day later, Lu Ye inspected himself.

The eighty-one Dao Bones in his body shone brilliantly. He lightly clenched his fist, and with a thought, ninety strands of Power of the Path were easily under his command!

To be honest, even Lu Ye himself didn't know how strong he truly was now, because he had been clashing only with Entering-the-Path experts and had simply never had the chance to cross hands with a Dao Fusion cultivator.

Compared to half a year ago, the Dao force he could control had doubled, but his actual strength had increased by far more than just twice.

These days, counting the missions he completed for the Falcon unit, the Yan family's monthly Family General stipend, and the Dao Bones agreed upon by the Military Affairs Office, and deducting his own consumption, he was basically able to harvest around twenty thousand Dao force every month.

For him, those missions weren't difficult to complete. A bunch of 14th Dao guys simply didn't amount to anything in front of him; most of the time was spent hurrying on the road and tracking down mission targets.

Some of those people were highly alert. Up to now Lu Ye had completed eight missions, and the one that took the longest consumed a full month and a half.

Almost all his Dao force had been invested into polishing Dao Bones, and as his strength kept rising, the Dao force needed for each polishing was gradually increasing.

Now that he had 90th Path Power, polishing a Dao Bone once required four to five thousand Dao force, so even with his monthly gains being quite plentiful, in the end he couldn't actually raise that many Dao levels.

During this half year he encountered another Star Abyss Blessing, but unfortunately it still only enhanced his physical fitness a little. That wondrous "one-shot success" sensation never showed up, leaving Lu Ye bitterly disappointed.

He took out his Falcon Token, probed it for a while, accepted a mission, and then leapt up into the air.

Two more months slipped by, and in a certain war zone, a battle finally came to an end. Lu Ye stood alone, surrounded by the corpses of several cultivators of the Insect and Blood Races.

He frowned slightly and collected the spoils.

Two months had passed and his mission was still not completed; this already broke his previous record.

The main issue was that he couldn't find his mission target, which meant that over the past two months his strength had barely improved—only three Dao levels.

He probed the Falcon Token again; all Code Red mission information hadn't been updated for a long time.

The 14th Dao powerhouses among the Insect and Blood Races who possessed top-grade Dao artifacts seemed to have agreed on something and all gone into hiding.

Lu Ye felt a headache coming on…

He had actually anticipated this situation.

In just over half a year, eight 14th Dao cultivators carrying top-grade Dao artifacts had died; even the most slow-witted on the Insect and Blood Races' side would have realized that someone was carrying out targeted hunting. The Falcon unit was famous, so the enemy would definitely make connections.

In that case, as long as the high-level of the Insect and Blood Races weren't idiots, they would make some targeted arrangements.

The hibernation of those 14th Dao powerhouses should be because of this.

But for Lu Ye this was troublesome. His biggest channel for acquiring Dao force now was Falcon missions; with the enemy all hiding, he had nowhere to hunt them down.

Cutting down enemies he ran into by chance in the war zones did yield something, but the efficiency was nowhere near selling top-grade Dao artifacts.

Ten more days later, Lu Ye still hadn't found any trace of his mission target. Helpless, he could only return to the Hall of Battle Merits and give up the mission.

This was the first time since he'd joined Falcon that he failed to complete a mission.

He started trying to take missions below Code Red, but those depended entirely on quick eyes and quick hands. Lu Ye tried for most of the day and still didn't get one.

He was filled with indignation.

Just as he kept trying, his Alliance Guard Token suddenly reacted.

Lu Ye immediately picked it up to probe.

Even though he'd been in Banlan for a while now, there weren't many people who could contact him—counting them all up, fewer than ten, all acquaintances.

He originally thought it was Yan Xiaowu contacting him; after all, it was about time for the Yan family to pay out the Family General monthly stipend.

But when he saw who was actually contacting him, Lu Ye couldn't help but freeze for a moment.

He hadn't expected it to be this person.

"My lord, do you need something?" Lu Ye sent back.

The one contacting him was actually Zi Ying!

She was also the only Dao Fusion powerhouse with whom he had a communication mark.

Zi Ying was succinct: "I'm short on troops and officers here. Interested in coming to lend a hand?"

Lu Ye didn't hesitate: "Where?"

It couldn't be Blue Water. After the last great battle, Blue Water wouldn't see major warfare again for several years.

Which meant Zi Ying must have been transferred away from Blue Water. As for which war zone she'd gone to, Lu Ye had no way of guessing.

That was normal. A Dao Fusion cultivator like Zi Ying would be wasted in current Blue Water. After the last star-assault battle in Blue Water, the battle alliance definitely made new arrangements for her.

However, in that last great battle Zi Ying charged into the insect hive alone, forcefully slew the Insect Matriarch, and was herself injured. She'd been recuperating ever since, and now her wounds were probably healed.

The reason she was contacting him was obviously because Crane Wings Camp had performed outstandingly in the last star-assault battle. If it were some other Enter the Path cultivator, even one wielding a top-grade Dao artifact capable of exerting 14th Dao strength, Zi Ying wouldn't go out of her way to contact him personally.