The Heaven Devouring Forest was gone now, and the spatial force in this region was no longer so chaotic. That allowed people to establish new transportation formations that saved them a great deal of travel time.

However, establishing new transportation formations was very expensive. It required time, manpower, and physical resources. It was a very large construction.

Some transportation formations were created by the Righteous path, and afterward, they relied on the people using the transportation formations to make a large amount of wealth.

However, at this time, Qu Jianying decided not to waste the time to construct transportation formations. With the arrival of the great era, many transportation formations had started to break, requiring a huge amount of money to maintain.

Furthermore, they had to be constantly on guard against the Corrupt path’s attacks. Most importantly, transportation formations were no longer making as much money.

More and more experts were being born every day, and many people chose to sit in flying boats, saving the money required for the transportation formations.

Most of the time, those who chose to use transportation formations had lower cultivation bases, because it was safer. But experts would rather fly in their own flying boats. They didn’t want their money to benefit the Martial Heaven Alliance.

As for the Martial Heaven Alliance’s own people, it cost them less to use the transportation formations, and that fee was only barely enough to maintain the transportation formations.

So in the other regions, transportation formations were no longer worth building, at least compared to before. But when it came to the Central Xuan Region, it was different.

The people here had money, and to save time, they often used transportation formations.

This transportation formation, which went from the Eastern Xuan Region to the Central Xuan Region, had hundreds of flying boats waiting their turn to use.

However, when Qu Jianying’s flying boat appeared, the people in charge of the formation hastily let her go through first.

This was Qu Jianying’s privilege as head of the Martial Heaven Alliance. After all, this transportation formation had been created by the Martial Heaven Alliance.

“Hmph, how arrogant. Are the matters of your Martial Heaven Alliance more important than other people’s?”

Qu Jianying’s flying boat had just entered the transportation formation when a voice came from the flying boat that was originally next in line and had been replaced by her.

“Oh, I actually encountered some old friends. Hey, tortoise race, how are you?” Long Chen immediately recognized the voice and looked to see the bald elder from the ancient races. It was the Netherpassage patriarch of the Seven Star Dragon Tortoise race that had hunted him before.

Long Chen smiled and waved like he was seeing a friend he hadn’t seen in a long time.

“You… Long Chen…”

That elder hadn’t been paying particular attention to that flying boat. He had just seen the mark of the Martial Heaven Alliance.

He hadn’t noticed the color of the Alliance character written at the front of it, which marked it as Qu Jianying’s flying boat.

Long Chen came walking out of it, greeting him warmly, and the elder almost coughed up blood again. If he had hair, it would definitely be standing on end.

“Die!” That Netherpassage expert immediately flew into a rage. Long Chen had destroyed the Eastern Xuan Region’s ancient races, and only a few of their elites had survived.

The worst thing was that Long Chen had not only destroyed the ancient races and plundered their treasuries, but he had even taken away the corpse of the Sword Spine Armor Dragon. They hadn’t gotten anything.

This was an absolute humiliation. This expert had almost entered a crazed, bedeviled state from his rage. Now he immediately attacked Long Chen.

He was completely infuriated. He immediately used his life and death energy to lock Long Chen down tightly. At this distance, he definitely wouldn’t give Long Chen a chance to run.

“Old brother tortoise, why are you so angry? Your eyes are red, and your mouth is wildly frothing.” Long Chen smiled at the Netherpassage expert, completely ignoring his attack.

“DIE!”

The sudden attack of a Netherpassage expert made everyone else jump in fright. His punch contained immense power.

Suddenly, a ray of sword-light shot out from behind Long Chen. It was resplendent and mighty, cutting through the restrictions of time and space. The Seven Star Dragon Tortoise race’s patriarch had his arm sent flying away from his body. Blood splashed.

“Ah, tortoise blood is such a good supplement! What a waste.” Long Chen caught the arm and shook his head regretfully.

Although he said it was regretful, he didn’t go collect the blood. Although that Netherpassage expert was powerful, his bloodline was not very pure. Compared to the blood of the Xuan Beasts, it wasn’t valuable. Even if he gathered it, he would probably only be able to use it for blood tofu or something.

The sword-light vanished. Qu Jianying appeared behind Long Chen, staring coldly at the patriarch of the Seven Star Dragon Tortoise race. “I still haven’t even gone to settle the bill with you for bullying my disciple, and you already dared to attack me today. Your guts are quite big.”

The appearance of Qu Jianying made the patriarch turn paper-white. Qu Jianying’s name contained immense power on the continent. Although they were both Netherpassage experts, he wasn’t qualified to challenge Qu Jianying.

“I… I… I didn’t bully your disciple! Long Chen was clearly the one who cruelly and viciously slaughtered my ancient races! Have you seen how he destroyed the Eastern Xuan Region’s ancient races?!” raged the patriarch.

“How laughable. You were the one who took the initiative to attack my disciple, so why can’t he attack back? You are a Netherpassage expert, yet you were so shameless as to attack a Soul Transformation disciple, and then you cry victim when you are actually beaten by him. Do you even care about your face?” sneered Qu Jianying.

“I never tried to kill him! I just wanted to ask him a few things!” quibbled the patriarch.

“So you’re saying it was all a misunderstanding?” Suddenly, Long Chen leaped into the conversation.

“Exactly, it was just a misunderstanding.”

“Hahaha, so it was just a misunderstanding. Why didn’t you say so sooner? I thought that you wanted to kill me!”

Long Chen suddenly laughed and walked over to the patriarch. He patted him on the shoulder and said reproachfully, “It’s not that I’m trying to scold you, but why didn’t you say so on that day? If you had, the misunderstanding wouldn’t have caused such a ruckus. Haha, now that you bring it up, I feel a bit embarrassed over it. However, now that we’re clear on things, I won’t continue bothering with you over this. Let us put away our weapons and replace them with gifts of jade and silk. Come, let’s hug it out to express our sincerity.”

Long Chen calmly embraced the patriarch of the Seven Star Dragon Tortoise race. The experts present were all stunned.

Even the patriarch was dumbfounded. He had no idea what Long Chen was doing.

He had an urge to kill Long Chen right now, but he knew that Qu Jianying would cut him to pieces if he dared to try.

Just as he was wondering what to do, Long Chen had finished his hug and once more patted him on the shoulder.

“Alright, we still have some urgent affairs to handle, so we’ll leave first.”

Long Chen returned to his flying boat, followed by Qu Jianying. They vanished as the transportation formation activated.

The patriarch stood there blankly. Even now, he hadn’t managed to twist his head around what had just happened. Was Long Chen really trying to settle things with the ancient races? But how was that possible?

“Patriarch! You…” Suddenly, one of the disciples of the Seven Star Dragon Tortoise race pointed at the patriarch’s back with a terrified expression.

“What is it?” The patriarch was startled and hastily spread his divine sense. He saw that at some point, blood had started to drip down his back.

He suddenly let out a furious shout, and the robes on his back were blown back, revealing his skinny figure.

People were shocked to find that the patriarch’s back had been skinned. It was now a mess of blood.

“Patriarch, your ancestral mark…” The disciples of the Seven Star Dragon Tortoise race covered their mouths, looking in disbelief.

The ancestral mark of the Seven Star Dragon Tortoises was the divine mark engraved on their shells. This divine mark was their strongest rune. They specialized in using their shields as weapons, which made their defense so powerful. That was all thanks to that rune.

This rune not only had defensive power, but it also had the ability to absorb a portion of a person’s attack so that it could be used against them. Although their offensive power was lacking, their immense defensive power was enough to cause despair in their enemies.

Back when the patriarch had fought the Sword Spine Armor Dragon, in truth he hadn’t used that much power. The only reason he had coughed up blood and been injured was because of how Long Chen had angered him so badly. In the battle, he had blocked and absorbed the Sword Spine Armor Dragon’s attacks. That was why their defensive power was described as monstrous.

However, this power stemmed from their ancestral marks. And now, that ancestral mark had vanished on him. In other words, he would be a shell-less tortoise in the future.

“Long Chen!”

The patriarch let out a furious roar and charged toward the transportation formation, but Qu Jianying’s flying boat had already vanished.

…

“Evilmoon, is this thing actually useful? I’ve read plenty of books, so don’t try to fool me.”

Long Chen looked at the rune on a strip of skin in his spiritual space. That was what he had skinned off of the Seven Star Dragon Tortoise race’s patriarch.

Taking this thing wasn’t something Long Chen had been planning. It was Evilmoon who had told him to do it. He also didn’t know what method Evilmoon had used to be able to steal the ancestral mark in front of two Netherpassage experts without them knowing.

“Of course it’s useful. However, it’s not useful to me, but to the Heaven Flipping Seal,” said Evilmoon.

“You want me to give it to Little Heaven?” asked Long Chen.

“Yes. Based on his aura, that baldie should be descended from the Blood Addicted Devil Dragon. Due to the mix of dragon and tortoise blood, as well as the mix of human blood later, his bloodline is very impure, and there are several divine skills that he can no longer use. I’d guess that he didn’t even know that this rune had another use.”

“What kind of use?

“The Blood Addicted Devil Dragon has one area where it is strong, and that is its recovery ability. My dark evil dragon race’s recovery abilities stem from our own stores of energy, but the Blood Addiction Devil Dragon relies on the divine runes on its scales to absorb external energy to recover. Although this ancestral mark has already regressed from its peak state, it still has a trace of that power. I’m preparing to refine it into a passive rune for Little Heaven. If it works, Little Heaven will gain some of its power. Its defense will rise, and it will be able to absorb some of an enemy’s attack. Furthermore, if it truly manages to activate this divine ability, Little Heaven’s recovery ability will soar. Compared to the formation Xia Chen put on, this rune will be much stronger if it works. Although hugging an old tortoise is distasteful, it’s worth it for Little Heaven,” laughed Evilmoon.

Obediently sitting through multiple transportation formations, Long Chen arrived within an ancient city.