Chapter 688: Title

Sitting on his cushion, Gu Qing Shan was fully focused on settling his cultivation.

Once a karmic adversity had passed, a cultivator’s realm would automatically increase, this was quite a miraculous period of time during a cultivator’s life.

Like a tsunami, his spirit energy was increasing in irregular leaps and bounds, manifesting more and more in his body, but Gu Qing Shan had to think of a way to make this increase stable and constant, otherwise, the excess spirit energy would damage his acupoints.

He guided the spirit energy tsunami inside his body towards his Dantian and slowly formed a spiral inside it to slow down the speed of the flow.

This was an intricate task, but it would greatly reduce the strain that the wild spirit energy put on his body.

A day later.

Gu Qing Shan finally opened his eyes.

He was now a Tribulation realm late-stage cultivator.

This time, because he didn’t cultivate sword arts alone but together with martial arts, archery, Blade arts, and various others, all of his bodily attributes received an improvement.

Which was an unexpected pleasant surprise.

All of a sudden, a blinking icon in his vision caught Gu Qing Shan’s attention.

One of the icons below the War God UI was blinking.

It was the [War God Title]

Finding that a bit unexpected, Gu Qing Shan tried selecting it.

Lines of glowing text quickly appeared from the [War God Title] icon.

[You’ve reached the lowest cultivation requirement for unlocking a new title]

[Because you’ve become the Shen Wei General of the cultivation world and your cultivation has reached Tribulation realm late stage, your title: ‘You Ji General’ has been overwritten]

[You can now use the new title: Shen Wei General]

[Title: Shen Wei General (note: You Ji General and Xiao Qi Chaplain titles have been overwritten)]

[Note: This is the highest rank of General in humanity’s allied army]

[Equipping this title, you gain the unique Skill: Quick Attack (Advanced)]

[Quick Attack (Advanced): the user’s attack speed is increased by 20%]

Looking at his unexpected new title, Gu Qing Shan was grinning.

Previously, the [You Ji General] title gave him an extra 15% attack speed, now the [Shen Wei General] title will give him 20%.

A whopping 20%!

His swordsmanship mainly relied on speed to win, so an increase of 20% was like giving wings to a tiger.

——no, not just his swordsmanship alone.

Martial arts, Blade arts, Archery, this title would support all of these as well.

This is terrific.

Gu Qing Shan equipped the [Shen Wei General] title, took out the Chao Yin sword, and took a stance.

He swung his sword.

The cold gleam flashed by.

“Ah?”

Gu Qing Shan scowled unexpectedly.

He found that his attack speed had indeed been increased, to the point that he was almost unable to control his sword stance.

This speed is… a bit too much.

Gu Qing Shan carefully considered it before nodding in confirmation.

A sword cultivator that was unable to control their sword was a hazard to themselves more than anyone else.

Gu Qing Shan’s attitude became serious.

He stood straight up and began to practice as he did in the past.

He started with the most basic sword techniques, then coordinated strikes, then a full show of his sword styles, then Secret Arts, and finally a sword array.

Through each step, Gu Qing Shan was slowly getting used to the change in speed.

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After practicing for two hours straight, he gradually adapted to the speed of his attacks with the reinforcement of the [Shen Wei General] title.

He put the Chao Yin sword away, sat back down on his cushion and rested.

Only now did he have some time to carefully think about what happened during this time’s karmic adversity.

But no matter how much he thought, Gu Qing Shan couldn’t figure it out at all.

Strange…

Why did the karmic adversity end in such a simple way?

From start to end, I only got hit by those people a single time.

And even that attack was blocked by my armor, so I didn’t get hurt at all.

——was that the entire adversity?

Or did I actually run into some sort of extremely dangerous situation that I didn’t know about?

He carefully thought about it, slowly rewinding every detail of everything that happened so far.

With the process of elimination, Gu Qing Shan slowly got closer to the answer.

“Seems like the key factor was that tree…”

He muttered.

As soon as I saw the tree, I had already released my inner sight to check below the desert.

But I didn’t sense anything.

If my karmic adversity really did come from that tree, the tree’s power must have been far beyond my imagination.

Otherwise, it isn’t simple to fool a cultivator’s inner sight.

Then…

What exactly happened?

Recalling the little black scorpion that he saw after waking up from meditation, Gu Qing Shan realized something.

After a brief moment of silence, he remembered.

Putting his hand on the Inventory Bag, Gu Qing Shan released his inner sight inside.

The branch that the tree gave him was still silently sitting in his Inventory Bag.

It was a jet black sharp tree branch.

At the time, I was cautious so I used a manipulation seal to pick the tree branch up without touching it and stored it inside my Inventory Bag.

But now—–

At this point, it was because of his conjecture that he felt hesitant to touch the branch.

Gu Qing Shan lifted his hand away from the Inventory Bag and silently sighed.

He quickly made his decision.

——-although I don’t know why it decided to leave me alone, but this time was just sheer luck.

I need to be a lot more careful from now on, I was too reckless earlier.

That branch should be more than enough to tell me the truth of this entire matter.

According to Wang Cheng’s memories, there are some establishments within the black market that are responsible for appraising rare and mysterious items.

I’ll just have them appraise the tree branch for me to confirm my suspicions.

Let’s move.

Putting the cushion away, Gu Qing Shan swallowed another spirit energy replenishment pill.

He lightly leapt upwards, flew high in the sky, going past the clouds.

The higher he went, the weaker the sand storm would be.

Finally, Gu Qing Shan reached a point where sand filled the air.

Normally speaking, the higher you were the stronger the wind should be, but this world was the complete opposite, with the wind getting weaker the higher he went.

Gu Qing Shan’s gaze extended far.

The entire world was covered by the wind and sand, reaching all the way to the horizon.

There wasn’t a single spot where he couldn’t see the sand storm.

Occasionally, some places could briefly be seen unaffected by the sand, but would soon be obscured again.

The only reason for that would be because some gigantic creatures or things were moving in the sand, briefly shifting it.

After confirming his direction, Gu Qing Shan turned into a streak of light that cut right across the horizon.

…

Five days later.

Gu Qing Shan finally reached his destination.

He appeared outside a small town, clearly worn out from the trip.

This small town in front of him should be the entrance to the black market, responsible for the verification and arrangement of those who wished to visit the black market.

Large and well-known organizations within the 900 million World Layers, as well as highly developed civilizations, would be allowed direct entry into the black market.

But anyone else who wishes to gain entry must go through a small admittance qualification test.

After a single second of hesitation, Gu Qing Shan decided not to reveal his identity as a member of the Justice Iron Fist Club.

Barry and Kitty are currently in his original world, and due to the transformation it was going through, they would temporarily be unable to leave.

Most if not all other Lord-class Combatants were heavily wounded in the war, currently protected inside Divine Power Frost Crystals and scattered around the Strife Zones.

It isn’t smart to reveal my identity right now.

He sighed and walked to the entrance of the small town.

Quite a long queue was already formed here, waiting for their turn to go into town.

The entire line of people was neat and orderly, not to mention highly efficient as they silently moved along.

Everyone was polite and amiable, maintaining a certain level of etiquette.

—–but this wasn’t because everyone here was reasonable and patient.

It was because along both sides of the path leading into town were countless severed heads stacked on top of each other, forming two long and tall walls.

The wall of heads stretched from the entrance of the town all the way to the vast desert outside.

These tens of thousands of heads all came from those who disobeyed the rules of the black market.

Under the scrutiny of the countless heads around them, everyone naturally learnt the manner of conduct in this place as soon as they could.

——-to enter the black market, there were two rules that everyone must follow:

No cutting in line.

And don’t be noisy.

Aside from that, the other reason why everyone was maintaining silence was that most of these people were carrying a book with them.

Everyone lowered their gaze, silently focused on reading the books in their hands.

After some careful observation, Gu Qing Shan found that above the long queue of people all sorts of books would occasionally appear.

They will randomly linger above the heads of those standing in line, at the same time asking if those people would like to read them to kill some time.

This was free.

Because the owner of this black market wanted as many people who came here to understand this world as well as the market as thoroughly as they needed to.

Looking at those books, Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help but sigh.

Unfortunately—— Wang Cheng didn’t know how to read.

Otherwise, I would’ve known a lot more about the black market already.

At this time, a green-back book flew over his head and gently asked: [Sir, do you need my service?]

“A, yes, I want to know what kind of knowledge you contain” Gu Qing Shan respectfully asked.

[Recorded on me is the knowledge regarding the 5th destruction of this world, if you are interested, you may read now]

“I’m very interested, thank you”

[You’re welcome, then shall we begin]

The book slowly fell into his hand and automatically turned the first page.

And so, while standing in line, Gu Qing Shan read about what happened during this world’s 5th destruction.