Wen Sansi shook his head. “Councilor Puyu was born in Darkstar Gorge, so Darkstar Gorge is a friend of the Ten Arbiters Council. We are duty-bound to help a friend in need.” Wen Sansi then suddenly changed the topic. “Elder Wu, could you give me a tour of Darkstar Gorge?”

Elder Wu immediately gave a welcoming gesture, and the two entered the gorge.

Darkstar Gorge was not considered a large power in the Outerverse, but neither was its influence insignificant since it had connections to the Ten Arbiters Council.

Conjectures concerning Lu Yin’s background quickly sprang up, and the Daynight clan sweetened the story by once again bringing up the matter of Lu Yin and the pirates, which fanned the wrath of many.

It could not be denied that the pirates had attacked the joint powers which had resisted Lu Yin, and Lu Yin could not explain the attacks away either.

However, Lu Yin was fine since there was no concrete evidence, and everything was based purely on speculation.

Wen Sansi stayed at Darkstar Gorge for two full days before leaving. He had not found any clues that could possibly link the Neohuman Alliance to Darkstar Gorge during his stay. Had it been Puyu’s own decision to work with the Neohuman Alliance? If so, then he had some guts.

“Mira, use the Council’s influence to suppress the rumors concerning Lu Yin and the pirates. No one is allowed to cause any harm to Lu Yin,” Wen Sansi ordered Mira.

Mira was puzzled. “Arbiter Wen, an investigation is required to look into if Lu Yin truly is a pirate. What if the rumors are true?”

“It doesn’t matter. Immediately suppress those rumors.”

Mira acknowledged her orders.

Wen Sansi disconnected the call, and his eyes sparkled. Even if he did not uncover any evidence of Darkstar Gorge secretly contacting the Neohuman Alliance, that did not mean that there were no other powers behind Puyu. Wen Sansi did not want to alert the enemy, so he just needed to use Lu Yin to restrict Puyu. After all, the Arbiter could not remain in the Outerverse all the time.

Even if Lu Yin was actually a pirate, nothing was more important than dealing with the Neohuman Alliance.

Still, Lu Yin was not simple, either. He definitely had some other powers behind him as well. Wen Sansi needed to find someone to restrict Lu Yin as well so as to establish a steady system with balanced powers.

Wen Sansi thought of the person whom Nightking Zhenwu had arranged to join East San Dios. He had originally wanted to transfer the new person away, but after thinking about it, he realized that a three-way power split was also acceptable.

In the Outerverse, on a giant planet that belonged to the Nalan family, Madam Nalan, Liu Fuxue, stared in shock at a screen that was displaying Lu Yin’s information.

After the Astral Combat Tournament, Liu Fuxue had used the Nalan family’s influence to investigate Lu Yin, and the results that were finally revealed to her were unbelievable.

On the surface, Lu Yin was a youth from the Frostwave Weave’s Great Yu Empire, the current King Zishan, and the last descendant of the Zishan bloodline. He had entered the universe from Earth and appeared to be very ordinary, but his surname was not an ordinary one. “Lu” was one of the primeval surnames, but the Nalan family had uncovered information that was buried even deeper. They had discovered that Lu Yin had once been put to trial by the Ten Arbiters Council.

It was unknown why or when it had begun, but at some point, the universe had started to view certain groups of people as hostile. These groups of people all had one common point, which was their unique surname. They had surnames such as “Lu,” “Xia,” or “Liu,” and they were all known as primeval surnames.

Since they were viewed antagonistically, after many eons, those with such surnames had either gained legal statuses, such as the people of the Great Yu Empire’s Earth, which had many people with those primeval surnames, or they had unyieldingly resisted the antagonistic attitude, like the Sword Sect’s Liu family. However, most of the groups had perished over the course of time.

Liu Fuxue had always paid close attention to Lu Yin’s surname, and the Nalan family’s investigation had started with Lu Yin’s appearance in the Great Yu Empire and then continued with his ancient surname. Because of her investigation into the recent matters with the various primeval surnames, Madam Nalan had discovered the matter of Lu Yin being tried by the Ten Arbiters as well as the tragic massacre from five years ago.

Five years ago, someone had reported that an organization had been voluntarily sheltering a group with a primeval surname. The Ten Arbiters Council had tried all those with the surname “Lu” and then sent that organization into the Outerverse. Seventy two people had perished during the course of these events. This had not been a very impactful matter, so it had not attracted much attention. It should have been buried in the annals of time, but it had been dug up once again by Liu Fuxue.

If Lu Yin was just an ordinary person, then such a matter would not have attracted any attention, especially since only a few dozen had died and there was nothing outstanding about the event. But the current Lu Yin was far from that; he held many statuses and had even become a true Ten Arbiters’ candidate, so this matter now became an important bit of information; Lu Yin held enmity against the Ten Arbiters!

Liu Fuxue quickly closed her screen, and there was a complex look on her face.

Lu Yin had friction with the Ten Arbiters. He also climbed upwards step by step. This young man had ambition, strategy, and destiny. He had a complicated background and was even possibly connected to pirates. Could all of his actions be made towards an attempt to seek retribution for that event in the past?

Liu Fuxue tightly clenched her wine glass. She desperately wanted to know which of the Ten Arbiters had proposed the trial of those with the “Lu” surname. That person would become Lu Yin’s greatest enemy.

There were now two choices before Liu Fuxue at this moment; she could either give up on Lu Yin so that she would not be roped in with him. After all, this youth had a great enemy in the form of the Ten Arbiters, and his future was sure to be fraught with danger. Each Arbiter represented not only themselves, but also the countless powers entangled with them; otherwise, they would not possess such lofty statuses. The other option was to become an observer and help Lu Yin from time to time without becoming too involved in order to avoid being thoroughly implicated with him in the future.

Liu Fuxue stared at the wine in her glass; she did not know which option to choose. The second option was not really supporting Lu Yin. It would merely be helping him on occasion. She felt slightly lost, as the Ten Arbiters were just too fearsome. Even the Sword Sect would not want to have them as an enemy.

People often assumed that the Ten Arbiters had absolute military power as well as their powerful backers, but Liu Fuxue knew that they had more than just what was publicly revealed. Each one of the Ten had their own trump cards that were frightening enough to cause old freaks with power levels above several hundred thousand to fear the youths. Liu Fuxue had only incidentally heard of this matter, and it was extremely terrifying.

To help or not to help?

Liu Fuxue was really lost at this moment!

Ten days passed in the blink of an eye. Lu Yin spent these days in extreme peace. Puyu did not trouble him, and the external universe’s speculations about his connection with pirates had gradually died down. Everything seemed to be returning to normalcy.

Wen Sansi had also departed from San Dios several days prior to return to the Innerverse. In other words, all of San Dios was currently split between Puyu and Lu Yin.

Regardless of if Lu Yin had been stripped of his status as a representative, he still held the highest status out of all of Wendy Yushan’s subordinates, and in some sense, he could even be considered to be on an equal footing with her. Hence, her several subordinates still listened to Lu Yin, especially Barley, who was very obedient.

Lu Yin had also settled some matters with Puyu in the San Dios tower.

Puyu ultimately decided to ignore Lu Yin. If Wen Sansi could guess that the person who had delivered the warning to Darkstar Gorge was related to Lu Yin, then Puyu could as well. His gaze towards Lu Yin was now filled with apprehension.

Lu Yin did not cause trouble for Puyu of his own initiative since he knew that this person would not survive for very long. Vulture’s very existence already meant that Puyu would be cast into the abyss sooner or later. Since Wen Sansi had not acted, then he should still be investigating the councilor’s relationship with the Neohuman Alliance. After all, Puyu would be finished if anything became clear.

But if Puyu was finished, who would remain in power in San Dios? The Ten Arbiters would not deliver San Dios to Lu Yin or Wendy Yushan, so it seemed that new members would probably arrive soon.

On that day, San Dios welcomed two new subsidiary members who would be under Wendy Yushan: Yue Xianzi and An Shaohua.

The two arrived at almost the same time and reported to Lu Yin. Barley then escorted them to Lu Yin’s courtyard to await his instructions.

“Bring Brother An in,” Lu Yin told Barley.

The man nodded and indicated for An Shaohua to proceed.

Yue Xianzi had an ugly expression. “What about me?”

Barley apologetically answered, “Please wait, Yue Xianzi. Representative Lu will meet you both one on one.”

Yue Xianzi snorted and unhappily stood to the side.

An Shaohua was aware that Yue Xianzi had some old grievances with Lu Yin, and that Lu Yin had given her a hard time at Shenwu Continent’s space station. An Shaohua then smiled and paid no attention to the girl as he entered Lu Yin’s courtyard.

His motive in coming here was simple: he intended to worm his way into Lu Yin’s inner circle. If Lu Yin could truly compete for a position as one of the Ten Arbiters in the future, then An Shaohua would have a ladder to climb higher on. After all, he was about the same age as Lu Yin, and the current Ten Arbiters were much older than the two of them. They would need to abdicate some day, and as long as no accident befell Lu Yin, he would be able to one day compete for such a position as well.

Watermoon Villa did not want to fall behind.

Lu Yin was not overly thrilled to see An Shaohua because Watermoon Villa had not given him any money. Still, the actions that they had taken were pretty decent.

“Brother An, I haven’t seen you for a few months. How are you doing?” Lu Yin invited An Shaohua to sit down and poured him a glass of water.

An Shaohua sighed and then courteously replied, “It’s been just a few months, but I never imagined that Brother Lu would become the champion of the Tournament of the Strongest and also become an acting councilor of the Outerverse Youth Council. Your accomplishments are astounding.”

Lu Yin laughed. “Forget about the position of acting councilor, as it’s already been taken away, haha.”

An Shaohua smiled in response. “Still, with Brother Lu’s position on the Council of Astral Academy, losing the other position can’t have been too bad. Even in the Outerverse’s East San Dios, Brother Lu’s status should be in the top five.”

Lu Yin sipped some tea. “Brother An, I’m curious. How did you pass the trial back then? Your particle-sized camera was also ruined.”

“I’m not like Brother Lu who dared to invite the Ten Arbiters to judge your results. I requested a space-exploring powerhouse to appraise me and also delivered some reports. That allowed me to pass the trial.”

Lu Yin understood, as An Shaohua was from a great power after all. As long as a trial taker survived through the Shenwu Continent, there would be some way for them to pass the trial. The information that he had reported might have already been discovered before but not been revealed in order to give these disciples a chance to pass the most recent trial.

These were the benefits of having a background, as everything would be prepared for their members.

Over the next two hours, Lu Yin and An Shaohua chatted about many things, and Lu Yin even came to a better understanding of the situation concerning Watermoon Villa as well as the overall situation of the Spirit Seal Flowzone. What Lu Yin was most concerned about were the peak powers like the Myriad Swords Peak rather than the Souldream Tribe.

The Souldream Tribe was filled with beauties, and their members intermarried with countless other powers. The tribe’s influence was not small, but Lu Yin was also not unfamiliar with it; Xi Yue was from the Souldream Tribe. Their initial misunderstanding had somewhat intertwined the two’s destiny, but the two of them had not spoken in a long time, so Lu Yin did not know if that washboard had undergone any changes. Lu Yin privately decided to find another time to contact him.

“Brother Lu, I’ll withdraw first, but feel free to let me know if there’s anything that you need.” An Shaohua spoke respectfully since he recognized his own position. He was well aware that their statuses were completely different.

Lu Yin smiled and nodded before having Barley show An Shaohua out.