The Human Emperor
The Human Emperor - Chapter 397: News from the Ocean!

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

With the insight and experience of the Saint Martial realm, circulating the first layer of the Halo of Dusk Stallion was more scary than harmful, and Wang Chong lifted this heavy weight as if it was as light as a feather.

Clackclack! The crisp sound of crunching bones came from his body, along with the rumbling of the twenty-seven acupuncture points beginning to open.

After a whole two hours, the final acupuncture point was opened, and the first cycle was finally completed within Wang Chong's body.

A change suddenly took place at Wang Chong's dantian. A green-black loop about the size of a thumb suddenly formed.

Though small, it was incredibly heavy. It exuded the weight of a hill, yet it glimmered like a sharp saber.

The Halo of Dusk Stallion!

In this instant, the aura emitted by Wang Chong's body became several times heavier while a completely new energy began to surge through his body.

It was not only this. When Wang Chong condensed the Halo of Dusk Stallion, his body underwent a fundamental change. He had satisfied the last condition to charge toward the True Martial realm.

Boom!

As he unwittingly touched upon the laws of the world, Wang Chong only felt like his mind was suddenly shaken, his entire soul seemingly jolted out of his body.

At the same time, a brand-new energy, imbued with the laws of the world, emerged from the depths of space-time and entered his mind. Like a land suffering from a long drought encountering a sweet rain, Wang Chong felt completely revitalized as his mental strength, Origin Energy, and physical strength instantly rose.

Meanwhile, that invisible power that had always restricted Wang Chong also collapsed!

At the Origin Energy realm, Wang Chong had reached a bottleneck, but now that the barrier between realms had been broken, a whole new 'world' was unfurling before Wang Chong, and nothing stood in his way.

"Wonderful!"

Wang Chong jumped off the ground. This was not his first time entering the True Martial realm, but the sensation of soaring energy still filled Wang Chong with exuberant excitement.

By ascending from the Origin Energy realm to the True Martial realm, Wang Chong had finally realized his hopes.

But he wasn't happy for too long. After just a few moments, Wang Chong exclaimed and fell back to the ground as something completely unexpected occurred.

Boom!

A gale began to spiral within the secret chamber. Right after he broke into the True Martial realm, the just-formed, weighty Halo of Dusk Stallion in Wang Chong's body suddenly unleashed an unimaginably terrifying attractive force.

As if Wang Chong's body had been dropped into a black hole, the Stellar Energy within him began to whirl into that thumb-sized Halo of Dusk Stallion.

Even all of the Origin Energy around Wang Chong began to pour in.

Wang Chong had never experienced such a terrifying attractive force. He felt like all his flesh and blood was being pulled in and kneaded into a ball.

In an instant, Wang Chong's brow was covered in sweat.

Bang!

The door to the hidden chamber was smashed open. At almost the same moment Wang Chong fell over, Huang Qian-er had heard something happen inside and rushed into the room.

"What's wrong?"

Huang Qian-er took a big stride forward and swiftly took Wang Chong by the arm. He was pale and sweating torrents, appearing inconceivably weak.

She had just been told to protect him while he was cultivating, and Huang Qian-er could never have imagined that he would cultivate himself into this state.

"Damn! This better not be a cultivation defect!"

Huang Qian-er had an extremely nasty expression.

The Huang Clan had sent her to protect Wang Chong. This was not simply a relationship between her and Wang Chong, but also involved the safety of the entire Huang Clan.

But if Wang Chong encountered a cultivation defect, she had no idea how she would explain things to both her clan and the Wang Clan.

No matter how powerful she was, she couldn't guard against a cultivation defect!

"What in the world are you thinking!"

Wang Chong looked at the fluctuating expression on Huang Qian-er's face, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He could immediately tell what sort of train of thought Huang Qian-er had departed on.

"Relax; I'm not in as awful condition as you imagine. You're also a warrior of the True Martial realm. Can you not find out what the problem is by inspecting my meridians?"

Wang Chong's reminder broke Huang Qian-er out of her panicked concern. Holding Wang Chong's wrist, she sensed his pulse and instantly felt embarrassed.

Although Wang Chong's aura was weak and his face pale, his pulse was very normal and steady, with no sign that he had encountered some cultivation defect.

"Hmph, if you're okay, why are you squatting on the floor!"

Huang Qian-er's face went beet-red as she threw Wang Chong's arm to the floor. When she stood up again, her face had once more cooled.

"Please, do I look like someone who's okay?"

Wang Chong was truly frustrated. He had only said that he had not encountered a cultivation defect. When had he said that he was okay?

"That's your own problem! Since you aren't dying, I'll be taking my leave!"

Huang Qian-er snorted and walked out with an icy face, the large silver sword still slung on her back.

Wang Chong could only watch with a bitter smile as Huang Qian-er coldly walked out.

This woman… she's really 'loyal to her duty'!

But Wang Chong truly couldn't be bothered to argue about these things with Huang Qian-er.

"I'm in trouble now!"

Wang Chong 'looked' at the Halo of Dusk Stallion in his body and bitterly laughed. Zhao Qianqiu had said long ago that cultivating this technique would impose a heavy burden on the body, consuming a great deal of Origin Energy and Stellar Energy, and even cause his martial realm to regress.

But Wang Chong had not expected the consequences to be so great.

He was not merely no longer a True Martial realm cultivator. He had gone from Tier 1 of the True Martial realm down to Tier 9 of Origin Energy, and then Tier 8, and finally stopped at Origin Energy Tier 7!

Just the first layer of the Halo of Dusk Stallion had caused him to fall three levels!

Wang Chong sat on the floor and bitterly muttered to himself, "This is quite the mess. This is only the first layer and I already dropped three levels. Won't this only get worse the further I go?"

If this was the result of the first layer, would he still be able to endure the results later on?

Wang Chong finally understood why only a few people had been able to cultivate this powerful technique in his last life.

"It seems that I'll have to take a trip to the spirit vein!" Wang Chong quietly said to himself.

For his strength to drop from Tier 1 of the True Martial realm to Tier 7 of Origin Energy was truly a massive blow. Fortunately, since he had already reached those levels before, as long as he had sufficient Origin Energy, he could still make his way back from Tier 7 to Tier 8, Tier 9, and finally Tier 1 of the True Martial realm.

He just needed to spend some more time.

It would be much easier now, on a completely different level of difficulty.

After resting in the secret chamber for a while, Wang Chong walked out.

……

In the refreshing autumn weather, steam surged above the mountain where the spirit vein was. The dense Origin Energy had congealed into visible white steam. Wang Chong sat in the middle of the steam, his eyes shut, his body only vaguely visible. He appeared very peaceful and quiet.

But around him, the surging Origin Energy poured into his body with astonishing speed.

After settling matters at Deflecting Blade Manor, Wang Chong had left for the spirit vein on almost the same day in order to cultivate. The Origin Energy was very thick here, far surpassing the amount that could be found at the three training camps of Shenwei, Longwei, and Kunwu.

And the Dragon Bone Art and Barbaric God Art that Wang Chong cultivated allowed him to cultivate several times faster than an ordinary person.

In a short five to six days, Wang Chong had recovered from Origin Energy Tier 7 to Tier 8.

The process had been unimaginably easy. Such was the difference between returning to a former cultivation level and reaching it for the first time.

"So comfortable!"

After some time, Wang Chong's eyes opened and he stretched his arms, his mind at ease. This was the advantage of possessing a treasure. Based on his current speed, he would need just a little more time to return to Tier 1 of the True Martial realm.

And it wouldn't stop there. To Wang Chong, opening the barrier to Tier 1 of True Martial was the same as opening Tier 2, 3, 4… all the way to Tier 9 of the True Martial realm.

At least until the peak of True Martial Tier 9, he would not encounter any barriers.

Moreover, he could begin cultivating several True Martial realm techniques.

Everything was proceeding with almost absurd smoothness.

"…I wonder how Cousin is doing?"

For some reason, Wang Chong had suddenly recalled his older cousin, Wang Liang.

In order to find those celestial meteorites that had landed in those islands over the sea, Wang Chong had prepared almost a million taels of gold for Wang Liang. A large number of multi-deck junks had been bought or constructed, and many warriors had been employed. He had also dispatched experts from the clan.

The scale was tremendous and costly in both time and energy. This was proof of how highly Wang Chong viewed this venture.

Wang Liang was his cousin and also a person that Wang Chong could truly trust.

Those meteorites scattered across those islands had an extremely important role in Wang Chong's grand plan.

Without those meteorites, Wang Chong's plan would be imperfect, perhaps even greatly damaged.

Three months had already passed. Logically speaking, if the voyage was smooth and the ocean winds favorable, they should have already reached those islands.

"Although this world is very different from the world I was familiar with, there are many aspects in which they are similar. There's the Wootz Steel produced by Sindhu, and then the existence of Yingzhou over the seas. If Wootz Steel could be discovered in Sindhu, then there's a high chance that meteorites can be found on those island mountains. …I just wonder how they're doing right now?"

Wang Chong sat cross-legged on the ground as he mentally spoke to himself.

The weather on the sea was complicated, and there were great waves, storms, lightning, thunderclouds… Too many factors were in play. And on the boundless ocean, there were no landmarks to speak of.

Even a carrier pigeon would get lost in such a place.

Sending messages was extremely difficult. He could only wait for Wang Liang to return to know anything.

I hope that everything goes smoothly.

With this thought, Wang Chong closed his eyes.

At the moment, he was extremely limited in what he could do. He could only silently wait, praying that they were all doing well.

Whoosh. A gust of wind blew by, and the spirit vein quickly fell silent.

……

"Reef! Reef! Watch out for that underwater reef!

"Helmsman, hard to port! Quickly!

"Lookout, tighten the lines on the mast and drop the sail by half, hurry!

"Everyone, hold on tight to a rope!

"Quickly, move! A big wave is coming, careful!"

……

Boom! With a deafening roar, a wave several dozen zhang high crashed down over their heads. With a crack, a mast snapped, swept off the boat with seven or eight sailors.

There was only time to scream as these sailors were lost in the waves in the blink of an eye, their voices drowned away.

Rumble!

Thunderclouds thickly bunched in the sky, flashing with lightning. Heavy rain torrented down, spanning the gap between heaven and earth with dense threads of water.

Atop the main mast of a junk, Wang Liang gasped for breath as he mentally rejoiced.

"…Another disaster avoided."

A thought flashed through Wang Liang's mind, and he suddenly rejoiced that he had listened to the advice and suggestions of his younger cousin, Wang Chong.

These multi-deck junks had all been built from the hardest wood and were overengineered, even though this had greatly increased the costs.

But time after time, these junks had resisted giant waves. Time after time, they had saved his life.

Everything he had experienced was proof that this investment had been completely correct.